THE    IDEALS   OF    INDIAN    ART 


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I'ARVATI    DANCING  :     SCULPTURE   FROM   THE   KURUVATTI   TEMPLE 


Frontispiece 


.THE    IDEALS    OF 
INDIAN    ART 


BY    E.    B.    HAVELL 
•« 

FORMERLY  PRINCIPAL  OF   THE  GOVERNMENT   SCHOOL   OF   ART  AND   KEEPER  OF  THE  ART 
GALLERY,  CALCUTTA 

AUTHOR  OF  "  INDIAN   SCULPTURE  AND  PAINTING,"   "  BENARES,  THE  SACRED  CITY,"  ETC. 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW   YORK 
E.   P.   BUTTON   AND   COMPANY 


Ho  7 


PRINTED  BY 

HAZELL,  WATSON  AND  VINEY,  IiD. 

U)NDON  AND  AYLESBURY, 

ENGLAND. 


CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Introduction    ........     xiii-xx 

PART   I 
THE  IDEALS   OF  INDIAN  ART 
CHAPTER    I 

THE    ORIGIN    OF    INDIAN     ART — THE    VEDIC    PERIOD 

Art  and  philosophy — The  Vedas  and  Upanishads — The 
keynote  of  Asiatic  art — Brahmanical  ritual  in  Vedic 
times 3-12, 

CHAPTER    H 

THE    ECLECTIC,  OR  TRANSITION    PERIOD 

Prejudice  against  anthropomorphic  images — The  subjec- 
tivity of  art — Asokan  art — The  Gandharan  school        13-21 

CHAPTER   HI 

THE    UNIVERSITIES    OF    NORTHERN     INDIA    AND    THEIR 
INFLUENCE    ON    ASIATIC    ART 

Western  art-teaching    and    Indian   thought — The    Indian 
physical  ideal,  or   superman  —  The    Buddhist   divine 
ideal  —  Indian  art  and   Yoga  —  A   yogin's  ritual  — 
Mnemonic  and  psychic  training — Chinese  and  Indian 
art  ...         .  ....         22-46 

a*  V 


241431 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   IV 

THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE    DIVINE    IDEAL 

FACES 

The  common  basis  in  Indian  art  and  religion — The  aura 
and  urnd — The  asanas  and  niildrds  —  The  Dhyani- 
Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas — The  Hindu  divine  ideal 
—  Early  Indian  symbolism  —  The  Churning  of  the 
Ocean 47-65 

CHAPTER   V 

THE    TRIMtlRTI 

The  philosophic  concept  of  the  evolution  of  the  Universe — 
Narayana  absorbed  in  Yoga — The  cosmic  cross — The 
Swastika  and  Sauwastika — The  gunas  and  classifica- 
tion of  Hindu  images — Brahma — Vishnu — Siva — The 
Vaishnavaites  and  Saivaites — Vishnu  and  his  avataras 
— Siva's  dance — Karttikeya  —  Siva  and  Daksha  — 
Ganesha — Geometric  symbolism  and  the  lingani  66-88 

CHAPTER    VI 

THE    FEMININE    IDEAL 

Sakti — Saraswati,  Lakshmi,  Durga,  and  Kali — A  legend  of 
creation — The  Indian  woman — The  divine  ideal  in 
woman — Parvati  in  sculpture — The  marks  of  feminine 
beauty — An  allegory  of  spring — Indian  symbolism 
and  its  interpretation 89-104 

CHAPTER   VII 

THE    THREE    PATHS 

Karma-marga,  bhakti-marga^  and  gnana-marga,  distinguish- 
ing three  different  temperaments — The  Indian  outlook 
upon  nature — The  unity  of  creation — The  European 
critic — Bhakti  in  art — South  Indian  bronzes — India 
and  Islam — The  revival  of  Indian  art         .        .     105-121 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER   VIII 

THE   HISTORICAL   DEVELOPMENT   OF   INDIAN    ART     pages 

The  basis  of  Indian  history — Buddhist  and  Jain  art — The 
zenith  of  Indian  art — Indian  painting — Saivaite  art 
— The  epics  —  The  Vaishnavaites  and  Sauras  —  The 
Moguls — Anglo- India  and  the  future  of  Indian  art 

122-144 

PART    II 

DESCRIPTION    OF   PLATES  XVIII-^XXXII 

The  great  bas-reliefs  at  Mamallapuram,  Madras  —  The 
elephants  at  Kanarak  —  Ajanta  sculpture  —  Sculpture 
from  the  Baro  temple  —  Head  of  a  Bodhisattva  — 
Sculpture  at  Elephanta  and  Ellora  —  Monolithic 
temple  at  Kalugumalai  —  Temple  of  Rajarini  at 
Bhuvaneshwar  —  Sculpture  in  the  Vellore  temple, 
Madras 147-182 

INDEX 183-188 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Parvati  dancing  :  Sculpture  from  the  Kuruvatti  Temple, 

NEAR  Harpanahallj Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

PLATE  FACING   PAGE 

I.   The  Bharhut  Rail  :  Inner  view  of  the  East  Gateway     i6 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

II,     AVALOKITfeSHVARA 34 

From  a  stattie  at  BdrSbudtlr,  Java. 

III.  Vishnu .60 

From  a  colossal  statue  in  Java. 

IV.  The  Churning  of  the  Ocean  :  Part- of  a  Relief  from 

the  Temple  of  Angkor,  Kambodia    .         .         .        .64 

From  a  cast  in  the  Trocadero,  Paris. 

V.  The  TRiMt>RTi :  a  Colossal  Sculpture  at  Elephanta     66 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Johnston  &"  Hoffman^  Calcutta. 

VI,    Brahma 70 

From  the  original  sculpture  in  the  Ethnographic  Museum,  Leyden. 

VII.   Siva  as  Nataraja  :  Front  View 78 

From  a  bronze  in  the  Madras  Museum. 

VIII.   Siva  as  Nataraja  :  Back  View 80 

From  a  bronze  in  the  Madras  Museum. 

IX.    Karttikeva  in  his  War-chariot  :    Portion  of  a  Kam- 

bodian  relief 82 

From  a  cast  in  the  Trocadero,  Paris. 
ix 


X  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

X.   Ganesha         .         ,  84 

From  a  sculpture  hi  Java. 

XI.   Parvati 90 

From  a  bronze  in  the  National  Musettm,  Copenhagen. 

XII.  A  Young  Woman  pressing  the  Asoka-tree  with  her 

Foot ....     94 

From  a  cast  in  the   Victoria  and  Albert   Museutn  taken  from 
an  Orissan  temple. 

XIII.  A  Sculpture  of  a  Young  Woman  from  the  Tadpatri 

Temple,  Madras 100 

FrofH  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Nicholas  ■&'  Co.,  Madras. 

XIV.  Bronze  Statuette  of  Apparswami      .         .        .        .114 

From  the  original  in  the  Colombo  Museum. 

XV.   Bronze  Statuette  of  Sundara-mOrti  Swami     .        .116 

From  the  original  in  the  Colombo  Museum. 

XVI.    General  View  of  the  Kailasa  Temple,  Ellora,  from 

the  North-west  Corner  .....  134 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XVII.   Temple  of  Surya  at  Mudhera,  Gujerat  .        .        .  140 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XVIII.   The  Great  Bas-relief  at  Mamallapuram,  Madras  : 

Right  Half 148 

Fro7n  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XIX.   The  Great  Bas-relief  at  Mamallapuram,  Madras  : 

Central  Part 150 

From  a  photograph  of  Messrs.  Nicholas  df  Co.,  Madras. 

XX.  Vishnu    supporting    the  Universe  :    Bas-relief  at 

Mamallapuram 152 

From  a  phetogi-aph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXI.  Lakshmi  arising  from  the  Sea  of  Milk  :  Bas-relief 

at  mamallapuram   .  .        ..         .        .156 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXII.   Sculpture  of  a  Bull  at  Mamallapuram  .         .        .  158 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xi 

PLATE  FACING  PAGE 

XXIII.  The  Elephants  at  Kanarak 162 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXIV.  Bas-relief  from   the  Entrance  to  Cave  XIX.  at 

AjANTA 164 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXV.   Queen  Maya  and  the  Infant  Prince   Siddhartha 

sleeping:  Bas-relief  at  Baro,  Central  India  .  166 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXVI.   Head  of  a  Bodhisattva  from  Java         .        .        .  168 
From  a  sculpture  in  the  Glyptotek^  Copenhagen. 

XXVII.   The  "  Linga  "  Shrine,  Elephanta    ....  170 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXVIII.   Siva  dancing  the  Tandavan,  Elephanta        .        .172 

Frofn  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXIX.   Siva  dancing  the  Tandavan,  Ellora       .         .         .  172 
From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXX.    Monolithic  Temple  at  Kalugumalai,  Tinnevelly, 

Madras .174 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Offiice  Library. 

XXXI.   Temple    of    RajaranI    at    Bhuvaneshwar,    Puri  : 

Part  of  the  Western  Facade     .        .         .        .178 

From  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

XXXII.    Pillar  in  the  Siva  Temple,  Vellore,  Madras       .  180 

Frovi  a  photograph  in  the  India  Office  Library. 


INTRODUCTION 

In  the  present  volume  I  have  attempted  to  fill 
up  some  of  the  particulars,  unavoidably  omitted 
from  my  book  on  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting, 
which  are  necessary  for  the  full  appreciation  of  the 
Indian  aesthetic  standpoint. 

Convinced  as  I  am  that  the  learning  of  the 
orientalist,  however  profound  and  scientific  it  may 
be,  is  often  most  misleading  in  aesthetic  criticism, 
it  has  been  always  my  first  endeavour,  in  the 
interpretation  of  Indian  ideals,  to  obtain  a  direct 
insight  into  the  artist's  meaning  without  relying 
on  modern  archaeological  conclusions  and  without 
searching  for  the  clue  which  may  be  found  in 
Indian  literature.  I  started  with  the  premise  that 
the  Buddhist  divine  ideal,  of  which  the  great  statue 
of  Buddha  at  Anuradhapura  is  the  type,  was  not, 
as  archaeologists  have  generally  assumed,  a  de- 
based imitation  of  a  Graeco-Roman  model,  deficiei^t 
in  technical  achievement  for  lack  of  anatomical 
knowledge,  but  an  imaginative  creation,  purely 
Indian  in  origin,  derived  from  the  teaching  of 
Indian  Yoga  philosophy  which  was  adopted  by 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Mahayana  Buddhism.  I  would  maintain  that  no 
critic  who  begins  with  this  archaeological  pre- 
possession is  capable  of  appreciating  the  beauty 
of  Indian  sculpture  and  painting,  or  competent  to 
interpret  the  intentions  of  Indian  artists. 

In  the  present  work  I  bring  forward  evidence 
from  Indian  literature  which  entirely  justifies  my 
conclusions  and  explains  more  fully  the  origin  of 
the  Buddhist  and  Jain  divine  ideal  and  its  deri- 
vation from  the  old  Aryan  heroic  ideal  as  described 
in  Indian  epic  poetry.  The  light  which  the 
Mahabharata  throws  on  this  point  is  important, 
for  it  shows  the  affinity  of  Indian  aesthetic  ideals 
with  Egyptian,  Cretan,  and  pre-Pheidian  Hellenic 
art,  a  matter  of  the  deepest  interest  to  students  of 
archaeology. 

I  have  also  endeavoured  to  indicate  the  in- 
spiration of  Vedic  thought,  which  still  permeates 
the  whole  atmosphere  of  Indian  life,  as  the  origin- 
ating impulse  of  Indian  art  and  the  influence 
which  links  together  all  its  different  historic  phases, 
not  excepting  the  Mogul  period  ;  but  I  differ 
entirely  from  the  European  critic  whose  usual 
attitude  is  to  point  to  the  Vedic  and  early  Buddhist 
period  as  containing  all  that  is  pure  and  spiritual 
in  Indian  thought,  and  to  explain  the  succeeding 
Buddhist-Hindu  epoch,  until  the  advent  of  Islam, 
as  a  gradual  relapse  into  superstition  and  bar- 
barism. This  error  is,  I  think,  largely  due  to 
ignorance  or  misapprehension  of  Hindu  artistic 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

ideals,  which  also  leads  Western  critics  to  disre- 
gard the  paramount  importance  of  Indian  idealism, 
not  only  in  Mogul  art,  but  in  the  great  schools  of 
China  and  Japan. 

I  am  aware  that  in  some  cases  the  interpretation 
I  have  given  to  Hindu  symbolism  may  seem  to 
lack  the  authority  of  Sanskrit  texts ;  but  art  and 
literature  do  not  always  follow  parallel  lines,  and 
the  archaeologists  who  have  sought  to  interpret 
Indian  art  only  by  literary  knowledge  have  often 
gone  woefully  astray.  Anglo-India  needs  more  art 
in  its  archaeology  and  less  archaeology  in  its  art. 

Though  in  my  excursions  into  the  new  world 
of  art  which  India  has  revealed  to  me  I  have  ac- 
quired an  intense  admiration  for  the  great  monu- 
ments of  the  past,  my  interest  in  Indian  art  is 
not  of  an  academic  or  archaeological  kind.  It  is 
centred  in  the  fact  that  Indian  art  is  still  a  living 
thing  with  vast  potentialities,  of  such  unique  value 
to  India  and  all  the  world  that  it  should  be  regarded 
as  a  great  national  trust  which  Great  Britain  is 
bound  in  honour  and  duty  to  guard  and  maintain. 
If  to  the  orthodox  critic  my  enthusiasm  may  seem 
to  be  excessive,  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  it  is  shared  by  a  goodly  company  of  my  fellow 
artists  ;  and  the  fault,  if  fault  there  be,  is  a  venial 
one.  Art  does  not  die  of  overpraise ;  it  cannot 
live  or  thrive  in  an  atmosphere  of  contempt  and 
depreciation.  The  half-hearted  admirers  of  Indian 
art  are  those  who  do  it  most  injury. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  not  a  small  matter,  either  for  this  country 
or  for  India,  that  Indian  artistic  ideals  are  so  mis- 
understood and  misinterpreted.  For  if  a  great 
national  art  affords  a  revelation  of  national  thought 
and  character  more  intimate,  more  complete  and 
universal,  than  history,  poetry,  or  romance  can  give 
us,  the  misapprehension  or  depreciation  of  its  ideals 
by  an  alien  governing  race  must  inevitably  sow 
intellectual  antipathies,  not  less  dangerous  because 
they  are  often  unconscious  ones,  which  aggravate 
racial  prejudices,  create  obstacles  to  that  intimate 
social  relationship  without  which  a  perfect  under- 
standing between  different  races  is  impossible,  and 
are  detrimental  to  good  administration,  especially 
in  the  vital  problems  of  education.  The  mistakes 
engendered  by  such  misunderstanding  should  be 
evident  enough  in  the  injury  which  has  been  done 
to  Indian  art,  even  in  the  efforts  which  have  been 
made  to  assist  it. 

It  would  be  regarded  as  silly  and  inconsequent 
if  a  critic  were  to  complain  of  the  sculptors  of  the 
Sphinx  that  they  knew  not  how  to  draw  or  model 
cats  and  dogs.  Western  methods  of  art-teaching 
in  India,  based  on  the  assumption  that  Indian 
artists  have  been  always  ignorant  of  anatomy  and 
perspective,  are  not  less  irrelevant  and  uninformed. 

The  nation  which  governs  India  should  not 
allow  its  state  museums  to  lend  themselves  to  the 
depreciation  of  Indian  art  in  all  its  higher  aspects. 
I  am  convinced  that,  with  the  spread  of  better 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

knowledge,  the  whole  consensus  of  artistic  opinion 
in  Europe  will  condemn  such  statements  as  those 
which  appear  in  the  official  handbook  to  the  Indian 
section  of  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum;  which 
reveal,  also,  the  guiding  principle  in  the  whole  past 
administration  of  it : 

"The  monstrous  shapes  of  the  Puranic  deities 
are  unsuitable  for  the  higher  forms  of  artistic 
representation  ;  and  this  is  possibly  why  sculpture 
and  painting  are  unknown,  as  fine  arts,  in  India. 
.  .  .  Nowhere  does  their  figure-sculpture  show  the 
inspiration  of  true  art.  They  seem  to  have'no  feeling 
for  it.  .  .  .  How  completely  their  figure-sculpture 
fails  in  true  art  is  seen  at  once  when  they  attempt 
to  produce  it  on  a  natural  or  heroic  scale ;  and  it 
is  only  because  their  ivory  and  stone  figures  of  men 
and  animals  are  on  so  minute  a  scale  that  they 
excite  admiration." 

It  is  easy  to  understand,  when  such  ideas  are 
given  authoritative  official  sanction  in  the  state 
collections  which  are  designed  for  public  enlighten- 
ment, why  many  sound  English  art-critics  are 
full  of  similar  prejudices,  and  why  Indian  art  is 
generally  better  appreciated  on  the  Continent  than 
it  is  in  this  country.  I  hope  that  the  selection  of 
some  of  the  finest  examples  of  Indian  sculpture 
which  I  have  made  to  illustrate  this  book,  together 
with  those  given  in  the  previous  one  on  the  same 
subject,  will  go  far  to  correct  the  false  impression 
of   Indian  art  which  all  our  national  collections 

b 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

create,  and  indicate  the  direction  in  which  the  latter 
may  be  improved. 

But  as  the  best  illustrations  are  always  poor 
substitutes  for  the  originals,  I  hope  also  that  they 
will  inspire  more  art-students,  Indian  as  well  as 
European,  to  go  and  seek  the  truth  for  themselves 
in  the  places  where  Indian  art  can  be  properly 
appreciated.  They  will  then  realise  fully  what  a 
mangled  and  distorted  version  of  it  has  hitherto 
been  presented  to  the  Western  art-world. 

It  is  difficult  to  argue  with  those  who  are  so 
steeped  in  Western  academic  prejudices  as  to  treat 
all  Hindu  art  as  puerile  and  detestable  because  it 
has  chosen  the  most  simple  and  obvious  forms  of 
symbolism,  such  as  a  third  eye  to  denote  spiritual 
consciousness — where  the  classical  scholar  would 
expect  a  Greek  nymph,  or  a  Roman  Sybil,  with  an 
explanatory  label — a  multiplicity  of  arms  to  denote 
the  universal  attributes  of  divinity,  and  a  lion-like 
body  in  gods  and  heroes  to  express  spiritual  and 
physical  strength.  Such  critics  seem  not  to  appre- 
ciate the  fact  that  Hindu  art  was  not  addressed, 
like  modern  Western  art,  to  a  narrow  coterie  of 
literati  for  their  pleasure  and  distraction.  Its 
intention  was  to  make  the  central  ideas  of  Hindu 
religionandphilosophyintelligibletoall  Hinduism, 
to  satisfy  the  unlettered  but  not  unlearned  Hindu 
peasant  as  well  as  the  intellectual  Brahmin.  It 
does  not  come  within  the  province  of  a  critic  to 
dictate  to  the  artist  what  symbols  he  may  or  may 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

not  employ — to  tell  him  that  it  is  true  art  to  use  x, 
y,  and  2  in  his  aesthetic  notation,  but  not  a,  b,  and  c ; 
or  vice  versd. 

In  all  great  national  art  the  artist  invariably 
prefers  the  symbols  which  make  the  most  universal 
appeal — those  which  are  best  understood  by  the 
people  he  addresses.  He  can  only  be  rightly  con- 
demned if  in  the  application  of  them  he  should 
offend  against  the  universal  laws  of  aesthetic  design 
and  rhythm.  Hindu  symbolism  is  justified  because 
it  speaks  straight  to  the  heart  of  Hinduism  and 
because  it  is  used  with  consummate  artistic  know- 
ledge and  skill. 

That  Hindu  art  was  successful  in  its  educa- 
tional purpose  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  known 
to  all  who  have  intimate  acquaintance  with  Indian 
life,  that  the  Indian  peasantry,  though  illiterate  in 
the  Western  sense,  are  among  the  most  cultured  of 
their  class  anywhere  in  the  world.  Avery  competent 
and  independent  European  witness.  Dr.  Lefroy, 
Bishop  of  Lahore,  has  testified  from  his  long 
personal  experience  to  the  extraordinary  aptitude 
with  which  even  the  poorest  and  wholly  illiterate 
Hindu  peasant  will  engage  in  discussion  of  or 
speculation  in  the  deepest  philosophical  and  ethical 
questions.  It  is  just  because  art  has  penetrated  so 
deeply  into  national  life  in  India  that  it  demands 
the  most  careful  and  sympathetic  study  of  every 
one  of  the  governing  class,  whether  he  be  artist  or 
layman.    In  this  respect,  also,  Indian  art  is  a  most 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

valuable  object-lesson  to  Europe;  for  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  art,  music,  and  the  drama  on  a  national  basis 
is  one  of  the  great  needs  of  Western  civilisation. 

Let  the  classical  scholar  by  all  means  indulge 
his  personal  predilections  privately,  but  those  who 
hold  Indian  art  up  to  ridicule  and  contempt  are 
only  condemning  themselves  as  wholly  unfit  to 
control  the  policy  of  our  state  museums  or  to  direct 
art-education  in  India. 

I  must  render  acknowledgments  for  assistance 
I  have  received  first  to  my  wife,  whose  keen  artistic 
intuition  and  sound  judgment  have  been  very 
helpful  in  the  analysis  of  the  examples  chosen  for 
illustration.  To  Mr.  F.  W.  Thomas,  Librarian  of 
the  India  Office,  and  Mr.  Abanindro  Nath  Tagore, 
Vice-Principal  of  the  Calcutta  School  of  Art,  I  am 
indebted  for  advice  and  ready  help  in  my  search 
for  literary  references.  I  am  also  very  grateful  for 
the  help  I  have  received  in  obtaining  photographs 
from  Dr.  A.  K.  Coomaraswamy;  the  Director  of  the 
Colombo  Museum ;  Dr.  Henderson,  Superinten- 
dent of  the  Madras  Museum  ;  Mr.  J.  de  LaValette  ; 
Mr.  J.  H.  Marshall,  CLE.,  Director-General  of 
the  Archaeological  Survey  of  India  ;  Mr.  T.  Opper- 
mann,  Director  of  the  Glyptotek,  Copenhagen ; 
Mr.  Edgar  Thurston,  CLE. ;  Mr.  M.  Veluyathan 
Asari,  Assistant-Superintendent,  School  of  Arts, 
Madras ;  Messrs.  Johnston  &  Hoffman,  of 
Calcutta,  and  Messrs.  Nicholas  &  Co.,  of  Madras. 

March    191 1. 


PART    I 
THE  IDEALS  OF  INDIAN  ART 


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CHAPTER  I 

THE   ORIGIN   OF   INDIAN    ART — THE  VEDIC   PERIOD 

Undoubtedly  the  most  significant  fact  in  modern 
Western  art  is  that  artists,  dimly  conscious  of  the 
limitations  which  the  narrow  conventions  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance  have  so  long  imposed  upon 
them,  have  been  looking  for  many  years  once  more 
to  the  East  for  new  ideas  and  new  sources  of 
inspiration.  It  is  still  more  significant  of  the  gulf 
which  separates  Eastern  thought  from  Western, 
that  in  this  quest  British  artists  have  not  turned 
at  once  to  India  as  the  primal  source  from  which 
the  main  current  of  Eastern  idealism  has  always 
flowed  towards  Europe,  but  to  China  and  Japan, 
which  during  the  greatest  periods  of  their  art- 
history  were  themselves  dominated  by  the  influence 
of  that  same  mighty  Indian  thought-stream. 

The  distinguished  Japanese  art-critic,  Mr. 
Okakura,  author  of  "  The  Ideals  of  the  East,"  has 
rightly  insisted  that,  in  the  domain  of  art-philo- 
sophy, all  Asia  is  one.  But  if  we  apply  Western 
analytical  methods  to  the  exegesis  of  Asiatic 
aesthetics,  we  shall  never  form  any  just  or  complete 

3 


'4    '*'  ART   AND   PHILOSOPHY 

conception  of  them  until  we  have  learnt  to  discard 
all  our  Western  academic  prejudices,  and  realised 
the  paramount  importance  of  Indian  philosophy 
and  religion  among  the  great  creative  forces  which 
moulded  Asiatic  art. 

Personally,  I  think  that  the  scientific  analysis 
of  the  Western  art-historian  is  often  very  mis- 
leading. What  art  needs  now,  both  in  the  East 
and  in  the  West,  is  not  analysis,  but  synthesis  ; 
not  a  dissection  of  styles,  methods,  and  principles, 
nor  the  determination  of  art-values  by  the  Rontgen 
rays  and  the  microscope,  but  a  clear  understanding 
of  the  great  psychic  currents  and  intellectual  move- 
ments which  have  created  the  great  art-schools  in 
different  epochs  and  different  countries  ;  and,  above 
all,  a  clearer  conception  of  the  art-philosophy  upon 
which  these  schools  were  founded. 

In  this  country  especially,  where  philosophy  is 
commonly  held  to  have  no  practical  bearing  on  life 
and  policy,  all  our  methods  of  art-teaching,  since 
the  sixteenth  century,  have  become  almost  entirely 
empirical  and  unscientific  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word.  On  the  one  hand,  the  puritanical  sentiment 
of  the  Reformation  has  tended  to  divorce  art  from 
religion  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  our  universities 
have  uprooted  the  idealism  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  substituted  for  the  art-philosophy  of  Christi- 
anity an  academic  formula  of  their  own  devising, 
the  influence  of  which  has  joined  with  modern 
materialism  in  destroying  all  our  great  national  art 
traditions. 


ART   AND    PHILOSOPHY  5 

Under  the  tyranny  of  this  clerical  and  literary 
domination  art  has  lost  its  power  and  influence  in 
national  education  and  dwindled  into  a  special  cult 
for  a  small  and  exclusive  sect,  whose  dogmas  are 
expounded  by  classical  professors,  whose  places  of 
worship  are  museums,  picture-galleries,  and  exhibi- 
tions, and  whose  idols  are  the  gods  of  pagan  Greece 
and  Rome. 

It  is  only  in  the  East  that  art  still  has  a  philo- 
sophy and  still  remains  the  great  exponent  of 
national  faith  and  race  traditions.  In  Indian  ideal- 
ism we  shall  find  the  key  to  the  understanding,  not 
only  of  all  Asiatic  art,  but  to  that  of  the  Christian 
art  of  the  Middle  Ages.  For  the  original  source  of 
this  idealism  we  must  look  much  further  back  than 
the  visible  beginnings  of  Indian  art,  as  we  now 
know  them  from  the  relics  of  early  Buddhist  wor- 
ship, which  date  from  the  first  two  centuries  before 
Christ.  We  must  fully  understand  that  the 
motive  forces  which  are  behind  all  art-creation 
often  exist  in  full  strength  long  before  art  finds  con- 
crete, visible  expression  in  literature  and  what  we 
call  the  fine  arts. 

Archaeologists  dig  in  the  ground  and  rummage 
among  the  ruined  Buddhist  sttlpas  of  Gandhara, 
and  when  they  find  innumerable  statues  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  pantheon,  placed  between  Corin- 
thian pilasters,  they  believe  that  here  Indian  art 
had  its  main  root,  and  that  Hellenic  thought  first 
inspired  the  ideals  of  India. 

Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  truth.    Indian 


6  ART   AND    PHILOSOPHY 

art  reached  full  expression  in  the  Indian  mind 
many  centuries  before  the  Grseco-Roman  sculptors 
carved  Buddhist  images  in  the  temples  and  monas- 
teries of  Gandhara.  Indian  art  was  conceived 
when  that  wonderful  intuition  flashed  upon  the 
Indian  mind  that  the  soul  of  man  is  eternal,  and 
one  with  the  Supreme  Soul,  the  Lord  and  Cause  of 
all  things.  It  took  upon  itself  organic  expression 
in  the  Vedas  and  Upanishads,  and  though  in  suc- 
ceeding centuries  other  thought-centres  were  formed 
in  Persia,  China,  and  Arabia,  the  creative  force 
generated  from  those  great  philosophical  concep- 
tions has  not  ceased  to  stimulate  the  whole  art  of 
Asia  from  that  time  to  the  present  day. 

It  is  probably  an  unique  phenomenon  in  the 
evolution  of  the  world's  art  that  so  many  centuries 
elapsed  between  the  complete  expression  of  Indian 
thought  in  the  Vedas  and  Upanishads  and  the  full 
maturity  of  the  technic  arts,  as  revealed  in  the 
sculptures  of  Elephanta,  Ellora,  and  Bdrobudilr, 
and  in  the  best  Indian  Buddhist  paintings  from  the 
fourth  to  the  eighth  centuries  a.d.,  the  majority  of 
which  have  perished. 

But  when  we  consider  the  esoteric  and  exclu- 
sive character  of  early  Aryan  culture  we  shall  begin 
to  realise  that  what  seems  to  be  an  abnormally  slow 
development  in  the  technic  arts  in  Indian  civilisa- 
tion was  deliberately  willed  as  a  part  of  the  extra- 
ordinary precautions  taken  by  the  early  Aryan 
immigrants  in  India,  and  their  allies,  to  prevent 
what  they  believed  to  be  their  divinely  inspired 


THE   SACREDNESS   OF   THE   VEDAS      7 

wisdom    being   perverted    by  popular    supersti^ 
tions. 

Other  races,  as  soon  as  they  have  perfected  a 
written  language,  make  haste  to  enshrine  their  most 
intimate  thoughts  within  it ;  but  the  wisdom  of 
the  Vedas  and  Upanishads  and  the  national  reli- 
gious traditions  of  the  Aryans  were  always  held  to 
be  too  sacred  to  be  materialised  in  any  form,  either 
in  the  written  word  or  in  the  technic  arts.  If  the 
intellectual  aristocracy  of  the  Aryan  tribes  refrained 
from  committing  their  thoughts  of  the  Divinity 
to  writing,  and  strictly  observed  the  Mosaic  law, 
"Thou  shalt  not  make  to  thyself  any  graven  image, 
or  likeness  of  anything  which  is  in  heaven  or  earth," 
it  was  certainly  on  account  of  the  peculiar  condi- 
tions in  which  they  found  themselves  placed,  and 
because  they  stood  on  a  much  higher  spiritual  plane 
than  the  races  by  which  they  were  surrounded,  and 
not  from  any  lack  of  artistic  genius.  The  proud 
Aryan  had  no  missionary  zeal :  the  fear  of  intellec- 
tual and  spiritual  contamination  made  him  exclu- 
sive. His  religion  was  for  the  chosen  people,  for 
his  tribe  and  his  family ;  but,  above  all,  for  his  own 
Self,  when  alone  in  the  forest,  on  the  hill-top,  or  in 
the  privacy  of  an  inner  room  in  the  house,  his  soul 
could  commune  in  secret  with  God. 

The  poet-priests  and  chieftains  who  composed 
the  Vedic  hymns  and  expressed  their  communings 
with  the  Nature-spirits  in  such  beautiful  imagery, 
were  great  artists  who  gave  to  India  monuments 
more  durable  than  bronze;  and  already  in  this  Vedic 


8        THE    KEYNOTE    OF    ASIATIC   ART 

period,  centuries  before  Hellenic  culture  began  to 
exert  its  influence  upon  Asia,  India  had  conceived 
the  whole  philosophy  of  her  art.  It  was  the  Vedic 
poets  who  first  proclaimed  the  identity  of  the  soul 
of  man  with  the  soul  of  Nature,  and  laid  claim  to 
direct  inspiration  from  God.  Vac,  the  Divine  Word, 
they  said,  took  possession  of  the  rishis,  entered 
into  the  poet's  mind,  and  made  him  one  with  the 
Universal  Self. 

This  idea  of  the  artist  identifying  himself  with 
Nature  in  all  her  moods  is  really  the  keynote  of  all 
Asiatic  art,  poetry,  and  music.  The  whole  theory 
of  the  sacrificial  rites  expounded  in  the  Brahmanas 
is  based  upon  the  assumed  identity  of  the  elements 
of  the  rite  with  the  elements  of  the  universe.  The 
syllables  of  the  Mantras  recited  by  the  priests  re- 
presented the  seasons ;  the  details  of  the  sacrificial 
hearth  represented  the  organs  of  the  human  body; 
the  number  of  the  oblations  represented  the  months 
of  the  year,  and  so  on.  The  object  of  the  sacrifices 
was  to  bring  the  sacrificer  into  direct  touch  with 
the  Nature-spirits.  The  devas  themselves  came 
down  from  heaven  to  take  part  in  the  sacrificial 
feast,  seating  themselves  upon  the  sacred  kusha 
grass.  "  Formerly  men  saw  them  when  they  came 
to  the  feast ;  to-day  they  still  are  present,  but  in- 
visible." On  the  other  hand,  the  correct  recitation 
of  appropriate  hymns  transported  the  soul  of  the 
sacrificer  to  the  abode  of  the  gods,  just  as  a  boat 
might  carry  him  over  the  sea. 

From  these  ideas  we  can  easily  understand  why 


THE   ART   OF   THE   VEDIC   PERIOD      9 

the  religious  teachers  and  intellectual  aristocracy  of 
the  early  Aryans  needed  few  concrete  images,  or 
symbols,  to  help  them  to  realise  the  nature  of  the 
Divinity.  When  they  saw  the  devas  themselves 
sitting  at  the  feast,  and  when  men  could  transport 
themselves  at  will  to  the  abode  of  the  Shining  Ones, 
what  need  had  they  of  gods  of  wood  or  stone?  The 
rishis  declared  :  *'  The  vulgar  look  for  their  gods  in 
water;  men  of  wider  knowledge  in  celestial  bodies; 
the  ignorant  in  wood,  bricks,  or  stones :  but  the 
wisest  men  in  the  Universal  Self." 

The  Vedic  period  in  India,  though  it  produced 
no  immediate  development  in  what  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  call  the  fine  arts,  must  nevertheless  be 
regarded  as  an  age  of  wonderful  artistic  richness. 
The  transcendentalismof  Vedic  thoughtwhich  could 
satisfy  the  intense  reverence  of  the  Aryan  race  for 
the  beauty  they  felt  in  nature  with  vivid  mental 
images  of  the  Nature-spirits  is  the  opposite  pole 
tothe  barbaric  materialism  of  the  present  day,  which 
is  the  negation  of  all  art,  and  very  different  from 
the  narrow  view  of  Puritanism,  which  makes  the 
sense  of  beauty  a  snare  of  the  Evil  One. 

Nor  was  the  Vedic  period  entirely  barren  of 
art  in  material  form.  The  elaborate  rites  of  the 
Brahmanas  called  forth  the  highest  skill  of  the 
decorative  craftsman.  In  the  description  given  in 
the  Ramayana  of  the  great  sacrifice  prepared  by 
Vasishtha  equal  honour  was  accorded  to  the  skilled 
craftsmen,  "  all  those  who  wrought  in  stone  and 
wood,"  who  made  the  preparations,  and  tothe  priests 


lo    THE   ART   OF   THE    VEDIC    PERIOD 

who  performed  the  rites;  and  the  priests  them- 
selves wrought  the  gilded  posts  to  which  the  victims 
were  bound,  and  which  marked  out  the  sacrificial 
area  : 

And  now  the  appointed  time  came  near 

The  sacrificial  posts  to  rear. 

They  brought  them,  and  prepared  to  fix 

Of  Bel  and  Khadir  six  and  six  ; 

Six  made  of  the  Palasd-tree, 

Of  Fig-tree  one,  apart  to  be  ; 

Of  Sheshmdt  and  of  Devadar 

One  column  each,  the  mightiest  far : 

So  thick  the  two  that  arms  of  man 

Their  ample  girth  would  fail  to  span 

All  these  with  utmost  care  were  wrought 

By  hands  of  priests  in  scripture  taught, 

And  all  with  gold  were  gilded  bright, 

To  add  new  splendour  to  the  rite  : 

Twenty  and  one  those  stakes  in  all, 

Each  one-and-twenty  cubits  tall ; 

And  one-and-twenty  ribbons  there 

Hung  on  the  pillars,  bright  and  fair. 

Firm  in  the  earth  they  stood  at  last, 

Where  cunning  craftsmen  fixed  them  fast ; 

And  then  unshaken  each  remained, 

Octagonal  and  smoothly  planed. 

The  ribbons  over  all  were  hung, 

The  flowers  and  scent  around  them  flung  ; 

Thus  decked,  they  cast  a  glory  forth 

Like  the  great  saints  who  star  the  north.^ 

The  carved  posts  were  the  models  on  which  the 
elaborately  ornamented  pillars  and  pilasters  of  the 
later  Hindu  temples  were  designed.  The  lamps 
of  the  Fire-spirit,  Agni,  and  the  libation  vessels 
for  the  arnrita  of  immortality,  the  soma  juice,  gave 

^  R.  T.  H.  Griffith's  translation. 


THE   ART   OF   THE   VEDIC    PERIOD    ii 

the  types  which  are  used  even  now  in  the  temple- 
services  of  Nepal,  Travancore,  and  other  parts  of 
India  where  Hindu  art-traditions  are  still  alive.  But 
the  visions  of  the  Vedic  seers  only  materialised  to 
the  wonderful  sculpture  and  painting  of  the  great 
period  of  Indian  art,  before  the  Muhammadan 
invasion — that  is,  from  the  fourth  to  the  tenth 
centuries  a.d. — when  Vedic  literature  was  first 
committed  to  writing. 

Though  the  Vedic  period  may  seem  to  Euro- 
peans so  barren  in  artistic  creation,  it  is  of  supreme 
consequence  for  the  understanding  of  Indian  art. 
For  throughout  all  the  many  and  varied  aspects  of 
Indian  art — Buddhist,  Jain,  Hindu,  Sikh,  and  even 
Saracenic — there  runs  a  golden  thread  of  Vedic 
thought,  binding  them  together  in  spite  of  all  their 
ritualistic  and  dogmatic  differences.  Even  now, 
on  the  ghats  of  Benares,  all  Indian  men,  women, 
and  children,  forgetting  for  once  sectarian  and  racial 
differences,  daily  join  together  in  worship  of  the 
One  God,  in  similar  rites  to  those  which  the  Aryan 
people  used  in  the  same  spot  three  thousand  years 
ago.  There  we  may  see,  if  we  have  eyes  to  see, 
that  all  India  is  one  in  spirit,  however  diverse  in 
race  and  in  creed. 

It  is  rather  difficult  for  Europeans,  bearing  in 
mind  the  religious  history  of  Europe,  to  understand 
that  sectarian  differences  have  never  had  quite  the 
same  significance  in  India  as  that  which  commonly 
obtains  in  Europe.  It  would  hardly  occur  to  an 
Indian  who  is  a  devotee  of  Vishnu  to  believe  that 


12  INDIAN    SECTARIANISM 

his  neighbour,  who  worships  Siva,  is  on  that 
account  a  heretic  and  doomed  to  everlasting  perdi- 
tion. Vishnu  is  to  him  that  aspect  of  the  One 
Supreme  which  is  most  favourable  for  himself,  his 
family,his  caste,  or  his  race:  thereforefor  his  worldly 
and  spiritual  advantage  he  will  concentrate  his 
thoughts  upon  that  aspect.  Vishnu  for  him  be- 
comes also  Siva,  Brahma,  and  Parameshwar — the 
Lord  of  All ;  but  he  will  not  quarrel  with  his  neigh- 
bour because  he  wishes  to  ascribe  all  the  powers 
of  the  Supreme  Deity  to  Siva,  on  any  other  aspect 
of  the  One. 

Sectarian  disputes,  culminating  in  bloodshed, 
rapine  and  torture,  there  have  been  in  India  times 
enough  ;  but  their  origin  has  been  more  often  con- 
nected with  rights  of  property,  political  jealousies, 
or  racial  animosities  than  with  differences  of  reli- 
gious dogma.  The  description  given  by  Chinese 
travellers  of  the  fifth  and  seventh  centuries  a.d., 
of  crowds  of  Indian  devotees  of  different  sects 
meeting  together  in  the  same  place,  and  of  Indian 
universities  attended  by  scores  of  professors  repre- 
senting as  many  different  schools  of  philosophy 
and  religion  is  illustrative  of  the  tolerance  of  Indian 
thought  in  matters  of  belief.  India  has  always 
taught  that  Truth  is  absolute,  but  there  are  many 
ways  of  realising  it. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   ECLECTIC,    OR   TRANSITION    PERIOD 

The  spirituality  of  the  Vedic  age  was  gradually 
obscured,  for  a  time  at  least,  by  the  complicated 
ritualism  of  the  Brahman  priesthood,  and  it  was 
the  teaching  of  Buddha  which  gave  the  next  great 
impulse  to  the  development  of  Indian  art,  widen- 
ing the  intellectual  outlook  and  correlating  the 
abstract  ideas  and  spiritual  vision  of  the  Vedic 
age  with  human  conduct  and  the  realities  of  life. 

But  though  Buddhism  became  the  state  reli- 
gion and  the  dominant  creed  of  the  masses  at  this 
period,  the  term  "  early  Buddhist  art,"  which 
archaeologists  apply  to  it,  does  not  convey  a  com- 
plete idea  of  all  the  influences  which  were  then 
moulding  Indian  art.  I  would  prefer  to  call  it 
the  Eclectic,  or  Transition  period  ;  for  it  was  the 
time  when  India  was  collecting  from  every  quarter 
of  Asia  the  different  materials  out  of  which,  in 
later  times,  the  perfect  synthesis  of  Indian  art  was 
formulated,  and  through  which  the  visions  of  the 
Vedic  age  materialised  in  the  technic  arts  of  the 
great  Buddhist-Hindu  epoch. 

13 


14  THE    SUBJECTIVITY   OF   ART 

This  Eclectic,  or  Transition  period  is  the  one 
which  has  hitherto  been  treated  by  archaeologists 
as  the  starting-point  of  Indian  art :  a  cardinal  error 
which  is  due,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  modern 
scientific  method  of  specialisation,  whereby  art  is 
treated,  not  as  the  full  and  complete  expression  of 
all  aesthetic  ideas  contained  in  poetry,  music,  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  architecture,  and  the  other  technic 
arts,  but  as  a  series  of  disconnected  compartments, 
each  one  regulated  by  different  rules  and  principles. 
And,  secondly,  to  neglect  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple upon  which  all  art-history  must  be  based,  that 
as  art  is  primarily  subjective  and  not  objective,  we 
must  always  seek  for  the  origin  of  the  great  art- 
schools  of  the  world,  not  in  existing  monuments 
and  masterpieces  or  in  the  fragmentary  collections 
of  painting  and  sculpture  in  museums,  but  in  the 
thoughts  which  created  them  all.  The  Vedic  period 
is  all-important  for  the  historian,  because,  except 
for  a  very  brief  period  of  its  history,  the  Vedic  im- 
pulse is  behind  all  Indian  art. 

Except  in  the  case  of  Saracenic  art,  it  is  not  often 
realised  what  an  important  influence  in  the  develop- 
ment of  art,  especially  Asiatic,  has  always  been  the 
strong  religious  prejudice — which  was  as  supreme 
in  the  Vedic  period  as  it  was  in  the  Reformation  in 
England — against  the  use  of  graven  images  or 
pictures  in  sacerdotal  ritual.  And  the  art-historian 
is  too  apt  to  assume  that,  so  long  as  painting  and 
sculpture  thus  remain  under  the  ban  of  religion,  the 
fine  arts  are  non-existent  and  the  artistic  faculties 


THE    SUBJECTIVITY   OF   ART  15 

are  undeveloped.  But  this  is  by  no  means  always 
the  case,  for  thought  cannot  be  suppressed  by 
priestly  interdict,  and  art  will  find  its  way  notwith- 
standing. It  is  a  profound  mistake  to  regard  the 
Indian  Aryans  as  an  uncreative  or  inartistic  race  ; 
for  it  was  Aryan  philosophy,  which  makes  all  India 
one  to-day,  that  synthesised  all  the  foreign  in- 
fluences which  every  invader  brought  from  outside 
and  moulded  them  to  its  own  ideals. 

Throughout  all  the  Vedic  period  the  devas 
came  down  and  sat  at  the  feast,  though  they  were 
only  seen  by  spiritual  vision,  and  did  not  reveal 
themselves  to  the  vulgar.  And  with  art  it  is  always 
so.  We  may  lavish  untold  wealth  in  filling  museums 
and  galleries  with  the  masterpieces  of  the  world  ; 
but  to  the  gaping  crowd  the  devas,  though  present, 
always  remain  unseen. 

Though  Buddha  denied  the  authority  of  the 
Vedas,  he  was  himself  a  Hindu  of  the  Hindus : 
and  it  was  the  philosophy  of  the  Upanishads, 
systematised  in  the  philosophical  schools,  which 
eventually  dominated  Buddhist  art  and  made 
Buddhism  a  world-religion.  But  in  the  first  part 
of  the  Eclectic  period  the  prevailing  influence  is  not 
the  idealism  of  Aryan  thought,  but  the  naturalism 
of  the  non-Aryan  races  which  were  converted  to 
Buddhism. 

Asoka,  the  Constantine  of  India,  raised  the 
technic  arts  employed  by  Brahmanical  ritualism 
on  to  a  higher  intellectual  plane,  and  made  the  fine 
arts  a  potent  instrument  in  national  education,  and 


i6  EARLY   BUDDHIST   ART 

in  his  propaganda  of  the  Buddhist  faith,  which 
extended  to  many  different  parts  of  Asia.  In  the 
Vedic  age  the  practice  of  the  fine  arts  seems  never 
to  have  been  a  priestly  vocation,  and  the  non- Aryan 
tribes  probably  supplied  Asoka  with  the  most  skil- 
ful sculptors  and  painters.  The  members  of  the 
Buddhist  Sangha  were  often  skilled  artists,  and 
wherever  the  Buddhist  missionaries  went  they 
took  with  them  pictures  and  images  to  assist  in 
expounding  the  sacred  doctrines. 

In  early  Buddhist  art,  as  we  know  it  from  the 
sculptures  of  Bharhut,  Sanchi,  and  Amaravati,  we 
can  recognise  two  distinct  groups  of  racial  elements. 
One  represents  the  vigorous,  if  somewhat  unde- 
veloped indigenous  Indian  tradition,  doubtless 
belonging  to  the  non-Aryan  tribes,  which,  now  re- 
leased from  the  domination  of  the  Brahman  priest- 
hood, took  a  prominent  part  in  developing  a  great 
national  religious  art. 

But  in  this  group  must  be  included  an  influence 
originating  in  Central  and  Eastern  Asia,  doubtless 
brought  by  the  tribes  of  the  Sakas,  Yueh-chi  and 
others,  which  were  then  pouring  into  India  over 
the  north-west  frontier.  The  other  element,  a  less 
conspicuous  one,  was  an  importation  from  Western 
Asia  of  the  more  polished  and  refined  arts  of  the 
Persian  school,  then  under  Hellenic  influence. 

The  stupa  of  Bharhut,  Plate  L,  with  its  pilgrim's 
procession-path  enclosed  by  a  sculptured  rail,  be- 
longs to  about  the  third  century  B.C.,  and  is  one  of 
the  earliest  known  existing  examples  of  Indian  art. 


PLATK    I 


THE   BHARHUT   RAII,  :     EAST  GATEWAY 


THE    BHARHUT   STUPA  17 

It  was  one  of  the  numerous  monuments  erected  by 
the  Buddhist  Emperor  Asoka,  either  to  contain 
relics  of  Buddha  or  to  mark  the  sacred  places 
hallowed  by  his  memory.  The  symbolism  of  the 
earlier  sun  and  nature  worship  which  survived  in 
the  Buddhist  ritual  is  conspicuously  shown  in  the 
plan  of  the  stupa,  with  its  circular  rail  divided  by 
the  four  entrances  at  east,  west,  north,  and  south ; 
in  the  sculptures  of  the  Lokapalas — the  genii  de- 
fending the  approaches  to  the  earth — which  flank 
the  gateways,  in  the  lions  carved  on  the  columns, 
and  in  the  great  open  lotus-flowers  which  decorate 
the  rail,  both  of  which  are  emblems  of  the  rising 
sun.  The  stupa  itself,  in  its  hemispherical  dome, 
simulated  the  blue  overarching  vault  of  the  heavens  ; 
the  tee,  or  pinnacle  of  stone  umbrellas  which 
crowned  the  summit,  representing  the  succession 
of  higher  spiritual  planes  leading  up  to  Nirvana. 

That  Asoka  made  use  of  foreign  craftsmen  to 
assist  in  carrying  out  his  colossal  architectural 
enterprises  is  evident  from  the  purely  Persepolitan 
design  of  the  clustered  columns  which  flank  the 
entrances,  and  from  various  details  in  the  carving 
of  the  rail.  At  the  same  time  the  sculptures  bear 
witness  to  the  existence,  at  this  early  period,  of  a 
characteristically  Indian  artistic  tradition,  far  more 
virile,  robust,  and  spontaneous  than  the  later  eclectic 
school  of  Gandhara — a  fact  which  is  almost  suffi- 
cient in  itself  to  prove  the  fallacy  of  the  archaeo- 
logical theory  regarding  the  predominance  of 
Hellenic  inspiration  in  Indian  art.    Such  a  develop- 


i8  ASOKAN    SCULPTURE 

ment  as  we  find  in  Asokan  art  could  only  have 
been  reached  in  the  course  of  many  centuries,  but 
as  nearly  all  Indian  sculpture  previous  to  the 
Buddhist  epoch  was  in  wood,  or  other  impermanent 
materials,  very  few  traces  of  its  previous  history 
have  yet  been  discovered.  Both  the  forms  of  con- 
struction and  the  technique  of  the  Bharhut  rail  are 
frankly  imitations  of  wooden  prototypes. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  further  archaeo- 
logical investigations  will,  sooner  or  later,  reveal 
some  of  the  lost  vestiges  of  early  Indian  art. 
Hitherto  archaeological  excavations  in  India  have 
been  little  more  than  a  scraping  of  the  superficial 
layers.  When  the  sandy  deserts  of  Rajputana 
and  the  lower  strata  of  the  alluvial  deposits  of  the 
Indus  and  the  Ganges,  and  other  sacred  rivers,  are 
explored  as  scientifically  and  systematically  as  the 
sand  of  Egypt  and  the  soil  of  Crete  we  may  learn 
a  great  deal  more  of  the  indigenous  Indian  art 
which  preceded  the  Asokan  period. 

In  the  treatment  of  the  human  form  Asokan 
sculpture  exhibits  none  of  the  idealistic  tendency 
which  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  Indian  art  when 
it  became  more  thoroughly  permeated  by  the  philo- 
sophy of  the  Upanishads.  The  person  of  Buddha 
as  a  divine  being  was  as  yet  excluded  from  plastic 
or  pictorial  representation.  The  Nature-spirits, 
such  as  the  Lokapalas,  are  treated  with  a  naive, 
anthropomorphic  realism,  and  the  circular  panels 
on  the  upright  posts  of  the  rail  which  alternate 
with  the  sun-emblems  tell  the  story  of  the  Buddha's 


THE   AMARAvATI    SCULPTURES        19 

pre-existences  on  earth  in  the  same  unaffected  style 
of  pious  narration  with  which  the  legends  of  early 
Christianity  are  told  in  Western  art. 

The  opening  chapter  of  Indian  plastic  art  which 
begins  at  Bharhut  developed  further  in  the  Sanchi 
sculptures  and  concluded  in  the  well-known 
Amaravati  reliefs  of  about  the  third  century  a.d., 
now  divided  between  the  British,  Calcutta,  and 
Madras  Museums.  The  latter,  though  marked 
by  a  higher  degree  of  academic  skill,  are  greatly 
lacking  in  the  largeness  and  spontaneity  of  design 
which  distinguish  the  sculptures  of  the  earlier 
school.  Much  of  the  present  misunderstanding 
and  neglect  of  Indian  art  on  the  part  of  European 
critics  is  due  to  Fergusson's  fatal  error  of  judg- 
ment, followed  by  Sir  George  Birdwood,  Mr. 
Vincent  Smith,  and  other  writers,  in  regarding  the 
Amaravati  sculptures  as  the  culminating  point  of 
Indian  sculpture.  How  far  this  is  from  the  truth 
will,  I  think,  be  obvious  to  any  artist  who  takes  the 
trouble  to  investigate  the  subject  for  himself. 

The  predominant  characteristic  in  all  this 
early  period  of  Indian  art  is  a  naive  naturalism  of 
an  anecdotic  type  which  runs  through  all  Chinese 
art  when  it  is  not  inspired  by  Indian  idealism. 
Chinese  influence  reappears  in  Mogul  art,  but  it 
was  never  more  strongly  felt  in  Indian  art  than  it 
was  in  the  time  of  Asoka.  It  is  in  naturalism,  not 
in  idealism,  that  the  native,  intuitive  genius  of  the 
Eastern  Asiatic  races  finds  its  true  expression. 
Not  until  Indian  philosophy  and  Indian  religious 


20  THE   GANDHARAN    SCHOOL 

thought  penetrated  into  China  did  Chinese  art 
take  wings  and  soar  into  a  higher  spiritual  atmo- 
sphere. But,  except  during  those  centuries  when 
Mahayana  Buddhism  was  supreme,  the  ideal  gods 
of  China,  unlike  those  of  India,  are  always  of  the 
earth,  earthy.  This  is  probably  the  reason  why 
this  aspect  of  Chinese  art  has  always  been  better 
appreciated  by  Europeans  than  the  Indian  con- 
ception of  divinity. 

In  Indian  art,  even  in  the  Asokan  period,  a 
deep  undercurrent  of  Vedic  influence  can  be  felt 
in  the  entire  absence  of  any  attempt  to  represent 
what  was  to  a  Buddhist  the  most  sacred  of  all  con- 
ceptions, the  personality  of  the  Blessed  One  him- 
self. The  numerous  legends  of  his  previous 
existences  in  the  form  of  tree,  or  bird,  or  beast, 
or  man ;  his  begging-bowl,  and  the  bodhi-tree 
under  which  he  gained  enlightenment,  and  even 
incidents  in  his  earthly  life  as  Prince  Siddhartha, 
all  come  within  the  scope  of  the  Asokan  artists' 
descriptive  skill ;  but  they  never  ventured  to  por- 
tray with  brush  or  chisel  the  person  of  Buddha, 
and  it  must  have  been  a  rude  shock  to  pious 
Buddhists  of  the  old  school  when,  towards  the 
end  of  the  Transition  period,  the  Graeco-Bactrian 
sculptors  of  Gandhara,  employed  by  the  Kushan 
king,  Kanishka,  began  to  represent  the  Tathagata 
as  a  trim,  smug-faced  Greek  Apollo,  posing  in 
the  attitude  of  an  Indian  yogi. 

The  importance  of  the  Gandharan  school  in 
the  evolution  of  Indian  artistic  ideals  has  been 


THE   GANDHARAN    SCHOOL  21 

immensely  exaggerated  by  writers  obsessed  with 
the  idea  that  everything  Greek  must  be  superior 
to  everything  Indian.  Gandharan  art  is  decadent 
and  lifeless,  in  so  far  as  it  is  Greek  or  Roman; 
the  more  it  becomes  Indian,  the  more  it  becomes 
alive.  To  regard  the  Gandharan  school  of  sculp- 
ture as  furnishing  the  model  on  which  the  Indian 
divine  ideal  was  founded  is  to  misapprehend  entirely 
the  philosophical  basis  and  historical  development 
of  Indian  art.  Gandharan  sculpture  is  not  a  start- 
ing-point, but  a  late  incident  in  the  Eclectic  oi" 
Transition  period,  which,  excepting  a  few  distinc- 
tive technical  characteristics,  left  no  permanent 
impression,  and  had  no  influence  in  shaping  Indian 
ideals.^ 

^  The  position  of  the  Gandharan  school  is  discussed  in  greater  detail 
in  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  by  the  author.     (Murray,  1908.) 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   UNIVERSITIES   OF   NORTHERN    INDIA  AND 
THEIR   INFLUENCE   ON   ASIATIC  ART 

It  was  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era 
that  the  great  universities  of  Northern  India,  in 
which  the  many  schools  of  philosophy  were  com- 
bined with  schools  of  painting  and  sculpture,  taking 
the  raw  materials  provided  by  the  indigenous  and 
foreign  non-Aryan  technical  tradition,  the  Per- 
sepolitan  tradition,  and  the  Graeco-Roman,  or 
Gandharan  tradition,  and,  moulding  them  into  one, 
provided  Asiatic  art  once  and  for  ever  with  a  philo- 
sophical basis  and  created  the  Indian  divine  ideal 
in  art.  This  new  artistic  development  was,  in  fact, 
the  flowering  of  the  ancient  Vedic  impulse,  the 
teaching  of  the  Upanishads  systematised  by  the 
philosophical  schools  and  applied  to  human  life 
and  work. 

The  opposition  of  Western  materialism  to  the 
philosophy  of  the  East  always  makes  it  difficult  for 
Europeans  to  approach  Indian  art  with  anything 
like  unprejudiced  minds.  The  whole  of  modern 
European  academic  art-teaching  has  been  based 
upon  the  unphilosophical  theory  that  beauty  is  a 

22 


WESTERN   ART-TEACHING  23 

quality  which  is  inherent  in  certain  aspects  of 
matter  or  form,  a  quality  first  fully  apprehended  in 
the  ancient  world  by  the  Greeks,  and  afterwards 
rediscovered  by  the  artists  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance. 

Just  as  the  Greeks  are  said  to  have  arrived  at 
their  ideal  of  human  and  divine  beauty  by  a  pro- 
cess of  selection  between  different  types  of  men  and 
women,  so  we  make  art  a  system  of  discrimination, 
or  differentiation,  between  what  we  call  beautiful 
things  and  ugly  things.  It  is  the  common  com- 
plaint of  artists  that  modern  dress  and  modern  life 
are  so  ugly  that  they  cannot  make  use  of  them  :  so 
art  becomes  an  archaeological  cult,  having  no  hold 
upon  popular  imagination,  for  it  is  cut  off  from 
real  life  and  work,  and  its  limits  are  artificially 
restricted  to  a  narrow  department  of  ideas  into 
which  the  world  of  every-day  life  does  not  enter. 

Indian  thought  takes  a  much  wider,  a  more  pro- 
found and  comprehensive  view  of  art.  The  Indian 
artist  has  the  whole  creation  and  every  aspect  of  it 
for  his  field ;  not  merely  a  limited  section  of  it, 
mapped  out  by  academic  professors.  Beauty,  says 
the  Indian  philosopher,  is  subjective,  not  objective. 
It  is  not  inherent  in  form  or  matter ;  it  belongs 
only  to  spirit,  and  can  only  be  apprehended  by 
spiritual  vision.  There  is  no  beauty  in  a  tree,  or 
flower,  or  in  man  or  woman,  as  such.  All  are 
perfectly  fitted  to  fulfil  their  part  in  the  cosmos ; 
yet  the  beauty  does  not  lie  in  the  fitness  itself,  but 
in  the  divine  idea  which  is  impressed  upon  those 


24  INDIAN   ART-PHILOSOPHY 

human  minds  which  are  tuned  to  receive  it.  The 
more  perfectly  our  minds  are  tuned  to  this  divine 
harmony  the  more  clearly  do  we  perceive  the 
beauty,  and  the  more  capable  we  become,  as  artists, 
of  revealing  it  to  others.  Beauty  belongs  to  the 
human  mind  ;  there  is  neither  ugliness  nor  beauty 
in  matter  alone,  and  for  an  art-student  to  devote 
himself  wholly  to  studying  form  and  matter  with 
the  idea  of  extracting  beauty  therefrom,  is  as  vain 
as  cutting  open  a  drum  to  see  where  the  sound 
comes  from. 

The  true  aim  of  the  artist  is  not  to  extract 
beauty  from  nature,  but  to  reveal  the  Life  within 
life,  the  Noumenon  within  phenomenon,  the  Reality 
within  unreality,  and  the  Soul  within  matter. 
When  that  is  revealed,  beauty  reveals  itself.  So 
all  nature  is  beautiful  for  us,  if  only  we  can  realise 
the  Divine  Idea  within  it.  There  is  nothing  com- 
mon or  unclean  in  what  God  has  made,  but  we 
can  only  make  life  beautiful  for  ourselves  by  the 
power  of  the  spirit  that  is  within  us.  Therefore 
it  is,  as  the  sage  Sukracharya  says,  that,  in  mak- 
ing images  of  the  gods,  the  artist  should  depend 
upon  spiritual  vision  only,  and  not  upon  the 
appearance  of  objects  perceived  by  human  senses. 

To  cultivate  this  faculty 'of  spiritual  vision,  the 
powers  of  intuitive  perception,  which,  until  recently, 
have  been  regarded  in  the  West  as  beyond  the 
scope  of  educational  methods,  was  therefore  the 
main  endeavour  of  the  Indian  artist  in  the  golden 
age  of  Indian  art  and  literature  when  Buddhism 


INDIAN   ART-PHILOSOPHY  25 

was  transformed  by  the  philosophical  schools  from 
a  simple  code  of  ethics  into  a  world-religion  ;  when 
the  immortal  Hindu  epics,  the  Ramiyana  and  the 
Mahabharata,  were  moulded  into  their  present 
form  ;  when  the  poet  Kalidasa  sang  at  the  court  of 
King  Vikrama ;  and  when  the  sculptors  of  Ele- 
phanta  and  Ellora  hewed  out  of  stupendous  masses 
of  living  rock  their  visions  of  the  gods  throned  in 
their  Himalayan  paradise.  And  if  you  would  in- 
quire what  this  art  means  for  us  I  would  ask  you 
to  consider  the  whole  art  of  medieval  Europe,  the 
great  Gothic  cathedrals,  the  sculpture  of  Chartres 
and  Rheims,  and  the  painting  of  Italy  from 
Cimabue  to  Fra  Angelico,  and  see  for  yourselves 
an  art  proceeding  from  the  same  inspiration  and 
founded  upon  the  same  philosophy. 

Throughout  Indian  art,  and  throughout  the 
Christian  art  of  the  Middle  Ages,  we  find  the  same 
central  idea — that  beauty  is  inherent  in  spirit,  not 
in  matter.  So  when,  at  last,  Indian  artists  of 
Aryan  descent,  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  reconciled  themselves  to  the  idea  of  repre- 
senting in  material  form  the  actual  .presence  of  the 
gods,  they  rejected  the  Hellenic  type  of  gods 
fashioned  entirely  after  human  models,  and  shaped 
their  ideal  of  divine  form  upon  the  ancient  artistic 
type  of  an  Indian  hero,  the  superman.  This  was 
the  ideal  of  physical  perfection  in  human  form  in 
early  Asiatic  art  in  Egypt  and  in  Crete ;  and  the 
symbolism  it  conveyed  had  its  influence  in  Greek 
art  also,  until  the  naturalism  of  Praxiteles  and 


26  THE    INDIAN    SUPERMAN 

the  later  schools  of  sculptors  and  painters  super- 
seded the  idealism  on  which  Hellenic  art  was 
originally  based. 

The  Mah^bhirata  tells  us  what  this  ideal  of 
the  superman  was.  It  was  the  type  of  a  mighty 
hunter  who,  in  desperate  conflicts  with  the  king  of 
beasts,  had  become  invincible  and  had  acquired 
a  lion-like  body,  with  broad  chest  and  shoulders, 
long,  massive  arms,  a  thick  neck,  and  a  very  slim 
or  wasp-waist. 

In  the  description  given  in  the  Mahabharata 
of  the  grand  festival  held  in  honour  of  Brahma  at 
the  Court  of  King  Virata  it  is  said  : 

"  Athletes  came  to  witness  it  in  thousands,  like 
hosts  of  celestials  to  the  abode  of  Brahma,  or  of 
Siva.  And  they  were  endowed  with  huge  bodies 
of  great  prowess,  like  the  demons  called  Kala- 
khanyas.  And,  elated  by  their  prowess  and  proud 
of  their  strength,  they  were  highly  honoured  by  the 
king.  And  their  shoulders  and  waists  ancj  necks 
were  like  those  of  lions,  and  their  bodies  were  very 
clean,  and  their  hearts  were  quite  at  ease."^ 

Kama,  the  Kuru  hero,  is  similarly  described  as 
"resembling  a  lion  in  the  formation  of  his  body. 
He  is  eight  rainis  in  stature.  His  arms  are  large, 
his  chest  is  broad ;  he  is  invincible." 

One  of  the  earliest  artistic  representations  of 
this  ideal  is  seen  in  the  extraordinary  paintings  and 
sculptures  lately  unearthed  by  Dr.  Evans  in  Crete. 
The  Minoan  dandies  of  about  3000  B.C.  are  here 

^  p.  C.  Roy's  translation,  vol.  iv.  p.  28. 


THE    INDIAN   SUPERMAN  27 

shown  as  actually  practising  tight  lacing  in  the 
feminine  fashion  of  modern  Europe,  pinching  in 
their  waists  to  a  horrifying  degree,  apparently  with 
the  intention  of  making  their  bodies  assume  this 
ideal,  lion-like  form.  In  Egyptian  sculpture  and 
painting  the  same  ideal  type  of  a  warrior  and  hunter 
constantly  appears,  though  without  the  unpleasant 
deformity  of  Minoan  art.  The  slim  waist  is  also, 
as  I  have  said,  the  characteristic  of  the  most  virile 
period  of  Greek  sculpture,  and  even  Aristophanes 
alludes  to  a  wasp-waisted  man  as  a  type  of  physical 
fitness.^ 

The  Mahibharata  seems  more  modern  in 
applying  a  similar  epithet  to  a  woman :  "  The  far- 
famed  daughter  of  King  Matsya,  adorned  with  a 
golden  necklace,  ever  obedient  to  her  brother,  and 
having  a  waist  slender  as  that  of  a  wasp."  ^ 
Professor  Burrows  gives  a  reference  to  a  Japanese 
poem  of  the  eighth  century  a.d.,  in  which  an  old 
man  is  singing  of  the  days  of  his  youth,  when 
his  waist  was  ''  as  slim  as  any  wasp  that  soareth."  ^ 
He  also  refers  to  Professor  Petrie's  quotations 
from  classical  writers  which  seem  to  show  that  the 
Goths,  like  the  Minoans,  practised  tight  lacing. 

These  are  instances  which  show  how  the  sym- 
bolism of  art  or  religion  often  takes  possession  of 
the  popular  mind  so  deeply  as  to  reduce  a  whole 

^  jP/u/.  558.     I  am  indebted  to  Professor  A.  Drachman,  of  Copen- 
hagen, for  this  reference. 

^  "  Virata-parva,"  sect,  xxxvii.  p.  90.     P.  C.  Roy's  translation. 
*  "The  Discoveries  in  Crete,"  p.  172. 


28  THE    INDIAN    SUPERMAN 

people  to  a  state  of  intellectual  and  physical  bondage 
to  an  abstract  idea.  When  humanity  begins  to 
grow  weary  of  this  servitude,  there  is  a  reaction  in 
art  marked  by  a  return  to  naturalistic  ideals,  which 
is  not  always  a  true  artistic  renaissance,  though,  so 
far  as  it  is  a  protest  against  the  undue  restraint  of 
human  nature  by  a  morbid  and  unhealthy  ritualism, 
it  marks  a  step  forward  in  the  evolution  of  man- 
kind. 

But  in  this  revolt  against  idealism  there  always 
seems  to  be  a  tendency  to  fall  into  a  worse  servi- 
tude of  materialism  and  sensual  depravity.  It  may 
be  that  the  science  of  the  future,  psychology,  will 
find  the  way  to  reconcile  this  pair  of  opposites,  and 
through  the  middle  path  lead  art,  both  in  the  East 
and  West,  to  a  grander  renaissance  than  that  of 
Greece  or  Italy. 

While  the  lion-like  body  became  in  Indian  art 
the  symbol  of  physical  strength,  another  essential 
quality  for  success  in  the  chase — fleetness  of  foot — 
was  symbolised  by  legs  like  a  deer,  or  gazelle,  a 
characteristic  which  is  very  prominent  in  the  figures 
of  the  Ajanta  cave-paintings  and  in  the  Amaravati 
sculptures.  Again  another  attribute,  ascribed  as 
a  mark  of  noble  birth  to  the  person  of  Buddha — 
the  long  arms — was  borrowed  from  the  ideal  of  a 
mighty  hunter  or  warrior.  I  believe  that  the  origin 
of  this  idea  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  a  great 
length  of  arm  connotes  a  long  sword-thrust  and 
spear-thrust.  In  primitive  times  the  long-armed 
man  would  have  an  advantage  both  in  war  and  in 


THE    BUDDHIST    DIVINE    IDEAL        29 

the  chase,  so  long  arms  became  a  symbol  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  an  attribute  of  nobility. 

Now  let  us  see  how  the  sculptors  and  painters, 
working  in  the  great  philosophical  schools  of 
Northern  India,  about  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  employed  this  very  ancient  ideal  form  to 
express  the  quality  of  the  divine  nature  and  the 
power  of  the  spirit,  instead  of  physical  strength. 
At  that  time  the  original  Buddhist  creed  had  been 
profoundly  affected  by  the  Yoga  philosophy  of 
Patanjali,  and  the  teaching  of  Nagarjuna  had  created 
the  division  between  the  Mahayana  and  Hinayana 
doctrines  ;  but  by  both  schools  the  Buddha  was  no 
longer  regarded  as  a  human  personality,  or  super- 
man, but  as  a  divine  being  who,  through  a  long 
cycle  of  many  previous  existences  on  earth,  and  by 
the  power  of  Yoga,  had  not  only  attained  to  perfect 
wisdom  and  thrown  off  the  bondage  of  the  flesh, 
but  had  won  dominion  over  the  whole  universe. 

Yet  as  this  Yoga  was  not  the  terrible  self-torture 
of  the  Hindu  ascetic,  but  the  Yoga  of  a  pure  and 
holy  life,  the  Master  could  never  appear  to  pious 
Buddhist  eyes  with  shrunken  flesh,  swollen  veins, 
and  protruding  bones — a  hideous  living  skeleton, 
as  sometimes  portrayed  in  Gandharan  sculpture. 
Even  when,  in  his  earlier  efforts  to  obtain  enlighten- 
ment, he  had  practised  self-mortification  for  six 
long  years — "vainly  trying  to  attain  merit,  per- 
forming many  rules  of  abstinence,  hard  for  a  man 
to  carry  out." — still,  the  Buddhist  poet  declares, 
*'  the  emaciation  which  was  produced  in  his  body 


30        THE    BUDDHIST    DIVINE    IDEAL 

by  that  asceticism  became  positive  fatness  through 
the  splendour  which  invested  him.  Though  thin, 
yet  with  his  glory  unimpaired,  he  caused  gladness 
to  other  eyes,  as  the  autumnal  moon  in  the  be- 
ginning of  her  bright  fortnight  gladdens  the  lotuses. 
Having  only  skin  and  bone  remaining,  with  his 
fat,  flesh,  and  blood  entirely  wasted,  yet,  though 
diminished  [in  body]  he  still  shone  with  undimin- 
ished grandeur  like  the  ocean."  ^ 

And  in  that  supreme  hour,  under  the  bodhi- 
tree  at  Gaya,  when,  as  his  full  enlightenment  was 
accomplished,  Mara,  the  wicked  one,  fled  van- 
quished; "the  different  regions  of  the  sky  grew 
clear,  the  moon  shone  forth,  showers  of  flowers  fell 
down  from  the  sky  upon  the  earth,  and  the  night 
gleamed  like  a  spotless  maiden" — and  at  last 
the  dawn  flushed  in  the  east,  and  all  the  devas 
thronged  together,  and  the  Buddhas  from  worlds 
innumerable : 

Kings  at  fierce  war  called  truce ;  the  sick  men  leaped, 
Laughing,  from  beds  of  pain  ;  the  dying  smiled, 
As  though  they  knew  that  happy  morn  was  sprung 
From  fountains  farther  than  the  utmost  East.^ 

Then  the  great  Yogi  was  reborn,  and  he 
appeared  to  mortal  eyes  as  the  Victor,  the  Hero, 
the  Shining  One,  endowed  with  eternal  youth  and 
strength,  filling  the  whole  world  with  light. 

^  "  Buddha-karita  of  Ashvagosha,"  book  xii.  pp.  94-6.  Translated 
by  E.  B.  Cowell, 

2  "The  Light  of  Asia,"  by  Sir  E.  Arnold,  p.  178,  Thirty-second 
Edition. 


INDIAN    ART   AND   YOGA  31 

To  symbolise  this  spiritual  rebirth,  Indian 
artists  moulded  their  divine  ideal  upon  the  race- 
tradition  of  a  mighty  warrior,  with  supple,  rounded 
limbs,  smooth,  golden-coloured  skin  and  a  lion-like 
body,  expressing  the  beauty  of  bodily  purification, 
when  the  soul  is  freed  from  the  grosser  attachments 
of  earth,  and  the  spiritual  strength  which  every 
human  soul  might  gain  by  the  Yoga  of  Service, 
by  the  Yoga  of  Knowledge,  or  by  the  Yoga  of 
Faith. 

The  Mahabharata,  in  referring  to  the  spiritual 
power  to  be  acquired  by  Yoga,  says  :  "  He,  O 
King,  who,  devoted  to  the  practice  of  austerities, 
betaketh  himself  to  Brahmacharya  in  its  entirety, 
and  thereby  purifieth  his  body,  is  truly  wise ;  for 
by  this  he  becometh  as  a  child,  free  from  all  evil 
passions,  and  triumpheth  over  death  at  last."  But 
it  adds  also  that  it  was  through  the  practice  of 
Yoga  that  the  heavenly  musicians  and  dancers,  the 
Gandharvas  and  Apsaras,  acquired  the  marvellous 
physical  beauty  they  possessed.  And  so  in  both 
Hindu  and  Buddhist  artistic  canons  it  is  laid  down 
that  the  forms  of  gods,  who  also,  like  human  beings, 
acquired  divine  powers  by  ascetic  practices,  were 
nevertheless  not  to  be  represented  like  the  human 
ascetic  with  bodies  emaciated  by  hunger  and  thirst, 
bones  protruding,  and  swollen  veins,  but  with  smooth 
skin,  rounded  limbs,  the  veins  and  bones  always 
concealed,  the  neck  and  shoulders  massive  and 
strong,  and  the  waist  narrow,  like  the  body  of  a 
lion. 


32  INDIAN    ART   AND   YOGA 

It  was  by  Yoga  also — by  spiritual  insight  or 
intuition — rather  than  by  observation  and  analysis 
of  physical  form  and  facts,  that  the  sculptor  or 
painter  must  attain  to  the  highest  power  of  artistic 
expression.  Indian  art  is  not  concerned  with  the 
conscious  striving  after  beauty  as  a  thing  worthy 
to  be  sought  after  for  its  own  sake:  its  main  endea- 
vour is  always  directed  towards  the  realisation  of 
an  idea,  reaching  through  the  finite  to  the  infinite, 
convinced  always  that,  through  the  constant  effort 
to  express  the  spiritual  origin  of  all  earthly  beauty, 
the  human  mind  will  take  in  more  and  more  of  the 
perfect  beauty  of  divinity.  ^ 

The  whole  spirit  of  Indian  thought  is  sym- 
bolised in  the  conception  of  the  Buddha  sitting  on 
his  lotus-throne,  calm,  impassive,  his  thoughts 
freed  from  all  worldly  passions  and  desires,  and 
with  both  mind  and  body  raised  above  all  intel- 
lectual and  physical  strife;  yet  filled  with  more  than 
human  power,  derived  from  perfect  communion 
with  the  source  of  all  truth,  all  knowledge,  and  all 
strength.  It  is  the  antithesis  of  the  Western  ideal 
of  physical  energy  :  it  is  the  symbol  of  the  power 
of  the  spirit,  which  comes  not  by  wrestling,  nor  by 
intellectual  striving,  but  by  the  gift  of  God,  by 
prayer  and  meditation,  by  Yoga,  union  with  the 
Universal  Soul. 

The  Buddhist  writings  are  always  insistingupon 
the  power  of  this  supreme  intelligence  which  sees 
"without  obscurity  and  without  passion";  and,  to 
to  quote  one  of  the  most  able  exponents  of  Indian 


INDIAN    ART   AND   YOGA  33 

art  in  modern  times,  Dr.  A.  K.  Coomaraswamy : 
"What,  after  all,  is  the  secret  of  Indian  greatness  ? 
Not  a  dogma  or  a  book,  but  the  great  open  secret 
that  all  knowledge  and  all  truth  are  absolute  and 
infinite,  waiting,  not  to  be  created,  but  to  be  found ; 
the  secret  of  the  infinite  superiority  of  intuition,  the 
method  of  direct  perception  over  intellect,  regarded 
as  a  mere  organ  of  discrimination." 

"There  is  about  us  a  storehouse  of  the  as-yet- 
unknown  infinite  and  inexhaustible;  but  to  this 
wisdom  the  way  of  access  is  not  through  intellectual 
activity.  The  intuition  that  reaches  it  we  call 
imagination,  or  genius.  It  came  to  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton when  he  saw  the  apple  fall,  and  there  flashed 
across  his  brain  the  law  of  gravity.  It  came  to 
the  Buddha  as  he  sat  through  the  silent  nights 
in  meditation,  and  hour  by  hour  all  things  became 
apparent  to  him:  he  knew  the  exact  circumstances 
of  all  being  that  had  ever  been  in  the  endless  and 
infinite  worlds;  at  the  twentieth  hour  he  received 
the  divine  insight  by  which  he  saw  all  things 
within  the  space  of  the  infinite  sakvalas  as  clearly 
as  if  they  were  close  at  hand ;  then  came  still  deeper 
insight,  and  he  perceived  the  cause  of  sorrow  and 
the  path  of  knowledge.  "He  reaches  at  last  the 
exhaustless  source  of  truth."  The  same  is  true  of 
all  "revelation";  the  Veda  (Sruti)\  the  eternal 
Logos,  "breathed  forth  by  Brahman,"  in  whom 
it  survives  the  destruction  and  creation  of  the 
universe,  is  "  seen,"  or  "  heard,"  not  made,  by 
its  human  authors  .  .  .  'The  reality  of  such  per- 

3 


34  THE    DHYANI-BUDDHAS 

ception  is  witnessed  by  every  man  within  himself 
upon  rare  occasions  and  on  an  infinitely  smaller 
scale.  It  is  at  once  the  vision  of  the  artist  and 
the  imagination  of  the  natural  philosopher."  ^ 

This  conception  of  the  Buddha  reached  its 
highest  expression,  in  sculpture,  in  the  magnificent 
statue  at  Anuradhapura,^  which  represents  the 
Indian  prototype  of  the  Buddhist  statues  of  China 
and  Japan,  as  well  as  those  of  Java,  though  very 
few  rise  to  quite  the  same  height  of  spirituality. 
One  of  the  exceptions  is  the  beautiful  statue  of 
Avalokit^shvara  (Plate  IL),  "the  Lord  who  looks 
down  with  pity  on  all  men,"  from  Bordbuddr,  in 
Java,  the  great  Buddhist  temple  the  building  of 
which  began  about  the  eighth  century  a.d.  This 
sculpture,  however,  must  be  attributed  to  a  later 
period,  perhaps  the  tenth  century.  It  may  be 
compared  with  the  equally  fine  Dhyani-Buddha 
from  the  same  place,  illustrated  in  "Indian  Sculp- 
ture and  Painting." 

According  to  the  theogony  of  Mahayana  Bud- 
dhism, the  Supreme  or  Adi-Buddha,  who  corre- 
sponds to  the  Hindu  conception  of  Ishvara,  wished 
from  the  One  to  become  Many,  which  desire  is  de- 
nominated Prajfia,  Divine  Wisdom.  Buddha  and 
Prajna  united  were  the  Father  and  Mother  of  the 
universe.  In  the  instant  of  conceiving  this  desire 
five  divine  beings,  called  the  five  Dhyani-Buddhas 
— Vairochana,  Akshobya,   Ratna-sambava,   Ami- 

^  "Aims  of  Indian  Art,"  pp.  i  and  2. 

'  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  P?.inting,"  Plate  III. 


PLATE  II 


AVALOKITfesHVARA 


AVALOKITESHVARA  35 

tabha,and  Amogha-siddha — were  produced.  Each 
of  these  Dhyani-Buddhas  produced  from  himself 
another  being,  called  a  Dhyani-Bodhisattva,  who 
had  each  a  practical  part  in  the  evolution  and 
guardianship  of  the  universe.  The  five  Dhyani- 
Bodhisattvas  are  Samanta-Bhadra ;  Vajrapani,  the 
Buddhist  Indra,  distinguished  by  his  thunderbolt, 
or  vajra  ;  Ratnapani ;  Padmapani,  or  Avaloki- 
t^shvara  ;  and  Visvapani.^ 

Avalokit^shvara  corresponds  to  the  Vaishna- 
vaite  conception  of  Vishnu  as  both  Creator  and 
Preserver  (Plates  III.  and  XX.).  He  is  adorned 
with  similar  symbolic  ornaments,  and  on  his  tiara 
is  a  small  figure  of  the  Dhyani-Buddha,  Amitabha, 
the  Lord  of  Infinite  Light,  who,  like  Vishnu,  is 
symbolised  in  the  midday  sun. 

He  is  seated  on  his  lotus-throne ;  behind  his 
head  is  an  aureole  shaped  like  the  leaf  of  the  sacred 
pipal-tree.  The  left  hand  assumes  the  symbolic 
gesture  of  dhanna-chakra-mudrd  as  he  expounds 
one  of  the  points  of  the  divine  law.  The  open 
right  hand  signifies  the  bestowal  of  a  gift 
{varamudrd).  The  lower  limbs  are  released 
from  the  rigid  "  adamantine  "  pose  of  profound 
meditation  assumed  by  Amitabha,  and  the  right 
leg,  stretched  out,  rests  in  front  of  the  throne 
on  another  lotus-flower  which  symbolises  the 
universe  created  by  the  Divine  Magician  for  his 
footstool. 

^  Brian  Hodgson,  '*  Essays  on  the  Languages,  etc.,  of  Nepal   and 
Tibet,"  p.  42. 


36         CHINESE    AND   JAPANESE   ART 

This  sculpture  is  distinguished  by  an  exquisite 
purity  of  sentiment  and  a  perfection  of  technique 
which  is  not  excelled  by  any  of  the  great  works  of 
Buddhist  art  in  China  and  Japan  ;  but,  above  all, 
by  that  inspired  feeling  of  divine  grandeur  and 
sense  of  high  spiritual  exaltation,  beyond  the  range 
of  human  intellectuality,  which  animate  all  the 
best  religious  art  of  India. 

It  is  precisely  in  that  austere  Himalayan 
grandeur,  in  an  almost  indefinable  sense  of  the 
sublime,  where  the  more  feminine  and  more 
realistic  conceptions  of  China  and  Japan  seem 
to  belong  to  a  lower  spiritual  plane  than  their 
Indian  prototypes.  The  divinities  of  the  Farther 
East  appear  to  dwell  in  an  earthly  paradise,  a  fair 
garden  of  peace  planted  in  some  quiet,  sequestered 
valley,  filled  with  delicately  perfumed  flowers, 
where  it  is  always  springtime.  The  Indian 
Olympus  affords  no  such  sensuous  delights  :  it 
is  pinnacled  among  the  highest  Himalayan 
solitudes,  never  trodden  by  human  foot,  often 
shrouded  in  mist  and  cloud,  only  seen  sometimes 
from  afar — as  in  a  vision — in  the  rosy  light  of 
dawn,  or  when  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun 
light  up  its  furthest  depths  with  burnished  gold 
and  show  to  our  wondering  gaze  the  gates  of 
heaven. 

The  ritual  of  Mahay^na  Buddhism  in  Northern 
India,  used  to  create  in  the  mind  of  the  devotee 
vivid  mental  images  of  the  divinity  invoked, 
throws  much  light  on   Indian   religious  art  and 


A   YOGIN'S    RITUAL  37 

the  methods  of  the  artist.  M.  Foucher,  in  his 
valuable  "  Etude  sur  I'lconographie  Bouddhique 
de  rinde,"  gives  extracts  from  various  Tantric 
manuscripts  of  the  twelfth  century  relating  to 
this  subject.  Though,  as  in  other  religions,  such 
formularies  may  become  a  means  of  self-decep- 
tion and  be  used  as  a  cloak  for  superstition  and 
sacerdotal  charlatanism,  they  nevertheless  reflect 
the  devotional  spirit  of  true  religious  art ;  they 
embody  principles  common  to  the  whole  art  of 
Asia  even  in  the  present  day,  and  explain  the 
practice  of  Indian  Yoga,  as  applied  to  aesthetics, 
from  the  earliest  times. 

The  yogin,  devotee,  artist,  or  "  magician  "  (in 
Indian  thought  the  Creator  is  the  Maha-yogi  and 
all  creative  art  is  "  magic  ")  having  purified  his 
physical  body  by  ablutions,  and  put  on  clean 
garments,  repaired  to  a  solitary  place  appropriate 
for  the  motive  he  had  in  his  mind.  If  the  benign 
powers  of  nature  were  to  be  invoked,  he  would 
choose  the  forest  shade,  or  the  bank  of  a  holy 
river ;  but  if  the  tamasik,  or  destructive  powers, 
then  he  must  seek  a  place  of  gloom  and  dread, 
such  as  a  cremation  ground,  or  cemetery.  There^ 
seating  himself  on  a  purified  spot,  he  invokes  the 
hosts  of  Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas  into  the  space 
in  front  of  him  and  offers  them  flowers  and 
perfumes,  real  or  imaginary. 

Then  he  commences  to  recite  the  "  Sevenfold 
Office  " — the  confession  of  his  sins  ;  an  expression 
of  joyous  sympathy  for  the  merit  of  others  ;  belief 
3* 


38  A   YOGIN'S    RITUAL 

in  the  Three  Jewels  of  the  Buddhist  faith,  Buddha, 
the  Doctrine,  and  the  Community  ;  a  resolution  to 
persevere  in  the  good  way ;  a  prayer  to  all  the 
Blessed  Ones  that  they  will  continue  to  preach 
the  doctrine,  and  further  consent,  for  the  world's 
good,  to  forego  for  a  time  the  right  they  have 
earned  to  enter  into  Nirvana  ;  and,  finally,  the 
dedication  of  all  the  merit  he  himself  acquires  to 
the  universal  welfare  of  humanity. 

This  preliminary  ritual,  like  that  which  now 
precedes  the  Brahmin's  daily  sandhya,  is  by 
way  of  spiritual  purification,  to  prepare  the  mind 
for  the  meditative  exercises  which  follow.  He 
must  now  realise  by  thought  the  four  infinite 
qualities,  or  perfect  states,  which  are  love  for 
all,  compassion  for  the  miserable,  joy  in  the  happi- 
ness of  others,  and  even-mindedness.  The  next 
two  meditations,  leading  up  to  the  final  ecstasy, 
are  on  the  original  purity  of  the  first  principles 
of  all  things,  and,  as  a  corollary,  on  their  empti- 
ness or  absolute  non-existence.  "  By  the  fire  of 
the  idea  of  emptiness,"  says  the  text,  "the  five 
elements  of  individual  consciousness  are  de- 
stroyed beyond  recovery."  The  identity  of  the 
yogin  being  thus  completely  merged  with  that  of 
the  divinity  invoked,  he  has  but  to  utter  the 
appropriate  mystic  syllable  which  contains  the 
''  germ "  of  the  divinity,  to  make  the  proper 
gesture,  or  mudrd,  and  to  recite  the  correct 
mantra,  to  realise  his  desire.  The  apparition  of 
the  god  or  goddess  presents  itself  to  his  mental 


A   YOGIN'S    RITUAL  39 

vision,  "  like  a  reflection  in  a  mirror,"  or  "  as  in 
a  dream."  ^ 

Mutatis  jmitandis,  this  might  be  a  description 
of  the  ecstasy  of  an  artist  monk  in  medieval  Europe. 
But  whereas  the  Western  mystic  seems  to  have 
allowed  himself  to  be  carried  away,  more  or  less 
unconsciously,  by  an  unbalanced  and  uncontrolled 
access  of  emotionalism,  the  practice  of  Yoga  in 
India,  recognised  as  a  branch  of  philosophy,  was 
from  the  earliest  times  reduced  to  a  scientific 
system. 

Underneath  the  mysticism  of  the  Indian  yogin  s 
ritual  there  are  scientific  psychological  principles, 
fundamental  to  oriental  idealism,  the  due  recog- 
nition of  which  might  greatly  benefit  art-education 
in  the  West.  The  first  principle  insisted  upon  is 
the  influence  of  environment  upon  the  temperament 
or  mood  of  the  artist.  Next,  that  the  faculty  of 
artistic  imagination,  by  which  thought-forms  are 
created,  is  as  much  susceptible  to  development  by 
methodic  mental  practice  and  training  as  are  the 
executive  technical  powers  by  which  they  become 
materialised  in  forms  of  art.  Thirdly,  the  necessity 
for  the  artist  to  identify  himself  absolutely  with 
his  subject,  or  to  merge  his  own  consciousness 
in  that  aspect  of  nature  which  he  wishes  to 
interpret. 

Shelley,  in  his  "Ode  to  the  West  Wind," 
expresses  perfectly  the  whole  idea  of  Yoga  in  art : 

^  See  "  Etude  sur  I'lconographie  Bouddhique  de  I'lnde,"  par  A. 
Foucher,  Part  II.,  Introduction,  pp.  8-1 1. 


40     MNEMONIC  AND   PSYCHIC   TRAINING 

Make  me  thy  lyre,  ev'n  as  the  forest  is. 
What  if  my  leaves  are  falling  as  its  own  ? 
The  tumult  of  thy  mighty  harmonies 
Will  take  from  both  a  deep  autumnal  tone, 
Sweet  though  in  sadness.     Be  thou,  Spirit  fierce, 
My  spirit !   be  thou  me,  impetuous  One  ! 
Drive  my  dead  thoughts  over  the  universe 
Like  withered  leaves  to  quicken  a  new  birth  ; 
And  by  the  incantation  of  this  verse. 
Scatter,  as  from  an  unextinguished  hearth, 
Ashes  and  sparks,  my  words  among  mankind  ! 

Art  thus  becomes  less  the  pursuit  of  beauty  than 
an  attempt  to  realise  the  life  which  is  without  and 
beyond  by  the  life  which  is  within  us — life  in  all 
its  fulness  and  mystery,  which  is,  and  was,  and  is 
to  come. 

It  is  hardly  possible  for  a  Western  artist  to 
appreciate  the  psychology  and  practice  of  oriental 
art  without  knowing  that  the  practice  of  Yoga  was 
combined  with  a  most  elaborate  and  scientific 
mnemonic  system,  by  means  of  which  the  whole 
of  Sanskrit  literature  was  handed  down  from  one 
generation  to  another,  from  the  Vedic  period 
until  medieval  times,  without  being  committed 
to  writing  in  any  form.  Probably  the  severely 
mechanical  kind  of  mental  exercise  which  this 
entailed  was  considered  a  necessary  intellectual 
complement  to  the  psychic  training  of  Yoga.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  the  whole  practice  of  the  Indian, 
Chinese,  and  Japanese  schools  of  painting  and 
sculpture  was  based  upon  methods  derived  from 
this  mnemonic  and  psychic  training,  as  given  in 


CHINESE    AND    INDIAN    ART  41 

the  Universities  of  Northern  India ;  and  here  the 
West  has  much  to  learn  from  the  East,  for  the 
essential  faculties  of  the  artist,  imagination  and 
memory,  are  those  which  are  least  considered  in  the 
curriculum  of  modern  European  academies,  where 
the  paraphernalia  of  the  studio  are  used  to  make 
up  for  the  deficiencies  in  the  mental  equipment  of 
the  student. 

The  West,  surfeited  with  the  materialism  of 
the  Renaissance,  is  already  slowly  turning  again 
to  the  East  for  spiritual  instruction.  The  East, 
reawakening,  is  becoming  conscious  of  the  truth  of 
her  inspiration,  and  at  the  same  time  is  learning, 
from  contact  with  Western  civilisation,  the  causes 
of  her  own  decadence. 

The  supreme  importance  of  the  great  Univer- 
sities of  Northern  India  in  their  influence  upon 
the  development  of  the  whole  art  of  Asia  is  not  yet 
understood  by  the  few  English  writers  who  have 
studied  Chinese  and  Japanese  art,  especially  by 
those  who  have  never  visited  the  East.  Mr. 
Laurence  Binyon,  in  his  admirable  and  otherwise 
well-informed  book,  '*  Painting  in  the  Far  East," 
commits  himself  to  the  following  statement,  which 
is  also  very  typical  of  Anglo-Indian  opinion  : 

"  It  would  be  natural,  in  lack  of  evidence,  to 
suppose  that  India,  which  gave  to  Asia  the  kindling 
ideals  and  imagery  of  Buddhism,  was  the  land  to 
which  we  should  turn  for  the  noblest  creations  of 
art.  Yet  we  are  confronted  at  once  by  the  fact 
that,  in  creative  art,  India  is  comparatively  poor." 


42  CHINESE    AND    INDIAN    ART 

That  this  should  represent  enlightened  critical 
opinion  in  the  metropolis  of  the  Empire  in  the 
year  of  grace  1909  will  give  future  historians  of 
British  India  much  to  reflect  upon.  Artistic 
Europe  has  been  prevented  from  recognising  the 
fulness  of  Indian  creative  genius  by  the  peculiar 
attitude  towards  Indian  art  taken  up  by  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  principal  European  Museums. 
This  attitude  is  no  longer  maintained  on  the 
continent  of  Europe  ;  and  in  Paris,  Berlin,  and  in 
the  Dutch  Museums  the  student  can  now  realise 
to  some  extent  the  commanding  influence  of  Indian 
thought  in  the  evolution  of  all  the  great  art  of 
Asia,  an  influence  which  has  been  long  recognised 
by  the  best  Chinese  and  Japanese  critics. 

It  is  not  only  as  centres  for  the  propaganda  of 
the  Buddhist  faith,  but  much  more  as  schools  of 
Hindu  philosophy,  that  the  influence  of  the  Indian 
Universities  was  felt  in  China  and  Japan.  Mr. 
Binyon  refers  to  a  Chinese  artist  and  writer  of  the 
sixth  century  a.d.,  who  published  a  theory  of 
aesthetic  principles  "which  became  a  classic  and 
received  universal  acceptance,  expressing  as  it  did 
the  deeply  rooted  instincts  of  the  race.  In  this 
theory  it  is  rhythm  which  holds  a  paramount  place; 
not,  be  it  observed,  imitation  of  nature,  or  fidelity 
to  nature  which  the  general  instinct  of  Western 
races  make  the  root  concern  of  art.  In  this  theory 
every  work  of  art  is  thought  of  as  an  incarnation 
of  the  genius  of  rhythm,  manifesting  the  living 
spirit  of  things  with  a  clearer  beauty  and  intenser 


CHINESE    AND    INDIAN    ART  43 

power  than  the  gross  impediments  of  complex 
matter  allow  to  be  transmitted  to  our  senses  in  the 
visible  world  around  us.  A  picture  is  conceived 
as  a  sort  of  apparition  from  a  more  real  world  of 
essential  life.  .  .  .  The  inner  and  informing  spirit, 
not  the  outward  semblance,  is  for  all  painters  of 
the  Asian  tradition  the  object  of  art,  the  aim  with 
which  they  wrestle." 

What  is  this  theory  of  aesthetic  principles,  with 
its  psychic  vision,  or  "apparition  from  a  more 
real  world  of  essential  life,"  but  the  Chinese  para- 
phrase, or  adaptation  to  a  secular  milieu,  of  the 
Indian  Buddhist  religious  ritual,  which  I  have 
described  above  ? 

Mr.  Binyon  is  evidently  unaware  that  in 
this  treatise  the  Chinese  writer,  whose  thoughts 
were  saturated  with  the  mysticism  of  Mahayana 
Buddhism,  is  simply  stating  the  basic  principle 
of  Indian  art,  a  theory  derived  by  Chinese  artists 
from  the  Indian  philosophical  schools.  In  the 
fifth  century  a.d.,  as  Professor  Hackmann  re- 
marks, commenced  the  great  revival  of  Buddhism 
in  China,  and  crowds  of  Chinese  pilgrims  and 
scholars  began  to  flock  to  India,  studying  in  the 
philosophical  schools,  where  painting  and  sculpture 
were  taught  as  a  part  of  the  Buddhist  religion,  and 
bringing  back  with  them  into  China  Buddhist  pic- 
tures and  images.  In  the  sixth  century,  when  the 
treatise  above  quoted  was  penned,  "the  Patriarch 
of  Indian  Buddhism,  Bodhidharma,  the  twenty- 
eighth  in  the  list  of  Buddha's  successors,  left  his 


44  CHINESE    AND    INDIAN    ART 

native  land  and  imigrated  to  China,  which  thence- 
forward became  the  seat  of  the  patriarchate."  ^ 
This  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  show  how  pre- 
dominant must  have  been  the  influence  of  Indian 
thought  in  Chinese  art  and  literature  at  that  time, 
even  though  it  may  not  be  easily  traced  in  the 
collections  at  present  existing  in  Europe. 

Europeans  can  better  understand  what  that 
influence  was  if  they  try  to  realise  what  would 
have  been  the  effect  upon  Italian  art,  supposing 
that  in  the  days  of  the  early  Renaissance  Rome 
had  been  converted  to  Buddhism  by  Chinese  or 
Japanese  missionaries  ;  or,  vice-versa,  the  effect 
upon  Chinese  art  if  the  Emperor  had  become 
Christian  and  the  Pope  and  College  of  Cardinals 
had  established  themselves  at  Pekin. 

It  is  curious  that  Mr.  Binyon,  with  his  rare 
gift  of  artistic  insight,  does  not  seem  to  perceive 
that,  to  the  oriental  artist,  his  clear  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  India  "gave  to  Asia  the  kindling 
ideals  and  imagery  of  Buddhism  "  and  his  denial  of 
India's  creative  genius  in  art  must  seem  strangely 
inconsistent.  For,  just  as  the  whole  essence  of 
Asiatic  art-creation  lies  in  "  the  inner  informing 
spirit,"  not  in  the  imitation  of  outward  semblances, 
so  we  must  estimate  the  comparative  influence  of 
one  school  of  Asiatic  art  upon  another,  not  by  mere 
affinities  in  forms  of  expression,  or  in  technique,  but 
by  the  extent  to  which  the  original  creative  thought- 
power  in  the  one  acted  upon  that  of  the  other, 

^  "  Buddhism  as  a  Religion,"  p,  80.     Probsthain's  Oriental  Series. 


CHINESE    AND    INDIAN    ART  45 

In  one  eloquent  passage  Mr.  Binyon  admits 
the  influence  of  Indian  thought  in  shaping  the 
artistic  ideals  of  China  and  Japan  : 

"  The  ideas  of  Buddhism  saturate  the  art  of 
China  and  Japan.  To  the  Buddhist  this  world  is 
transitory,  vile, and  miserable;  the  flesh  is  a  burden, 
desirean  evil,  personality  a  prison.  And  all  through 
the  classic  art  of  those  countries,  though  these  con- 
ceptions have  been  turned  to  gracious  and  sweet 
uses  in  the  life  of  human  intercourse,  and  though 
the  old  Adam  of  humanity  breaks  forth  from  time 
to  time  in  celebration  of  war,  adventure,  and 
the  deeds  of  heroes,  yet  the  Indian  ideal  claims 
everywhere  its  votaries,  and  the  chosen  and  re- 
current theme  is  the  beauty  of  contemplation,  not 
of  action.  Not  the  glory  of  the  naked  human  form, 
to  Western  art  the  noblest  and  most  expressive  of 
symbols ;  not  the  proud  and  conscious  assertion 
of  human  personality ;  but,  instead  of  these,  all 
thoughts  that  lead  us  out  from  ourselves  into  the 
universal  life,  hints  of  the  infinite,  whispers  from 
secret  sources — mountains,  waters,  mists,  flower- 
ing trees,  whatever  tells  of  powers  and  presences 
mightier  than  ourselves :  these  are  the  themes 
dwelt  upon,  cherished,  and  preferred."  ^ 

It  is  just  such  thoughts  as  these  which  inspired 
the  Indian  sculptor  and  the  Indian  master-builder 
in  the  great  epoch  of  Buddhist-Hindu  art  which 
was  contemporary  with  the  early  schools  of  ideal 
painting  in  China  and  Japan.  And  though  usually 
more  austere  and  more  severely  restrained  in  the 

*  *'  Painting  in  the  Far  East,"  p.  22. 


46  SALVATION    BY   WORKS 

form  of  expression,  the  creative  genius  of  India  in 
sculpture  and  in  architecture  was  not  less  great 
than  that  shown  by  China  and  Japan  in  the  sister 
art.  There  is  a  reason,  quite  apart  from  aesthetics, 
why  India  has  so  little  to  show  in  painting  com- 
pared with  China  and  Japan.  When  the  idea  of 
salvation  by  works  ^  took  firm  hold  of  the  Indian 
mind,  it  became  a  religious  duty  on  the  part  of  the 
Indian  artist  and  hispatrontoadoptthemoststrenu- 
ous,  the  most  laborious,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
most  enduring  methods  of  artistic  expression — for 
the  greater  the  toil  involved  in  the  work  the  greater 
would  be  the  merit  won.  To  decorate  a  relic- 
shrine,  temple,  or  monastery  with  high  reliefs  in 
stone  would  bring  more  reward  in  a  future  existence, 
both  to  the  artists  and  craftsmen  and  to  those  who 
provided  them  with  the  necessities  of  life,  than  the 
simpler  and  less  costly  method  of  painting  in  fresco. 
Thus  the  early  wooden  architecture  of  Buddhist 
India  gradually  gave  place  to  lithic  forms  of  con- 
struction, and  religious  fervour  developed  a  great 
school  of  architectural  sculpture  by  which  Indian 
art  in  later  times  was  better  protected  from  the 
savagery  of  Mogul  and  other  iconoclasts  who  have 
destroyed  all  but  the  last  vestiges  of  Buddhist 
religious  paintings. 

1  See  Chapter  Vll. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   THE   DIVINE   IDEAL 

In  the  previous  chapter  I  have  explained  the  artistic 
ideal  of  the  human  or  divine  figure,  expressing 
spiritual  instead  of  physical  strength,  which  Indian 
sculptors  and  painters  inspired  by  Aryan  philo- 
sophy gradually  evolved  out  of  the  eclectic  elements 
of  the  Transition  period.  It  was  an  ideal  common 
to  all  schools  of  religious  thought — Jain,  Buddhist, 
or  Brahmanical.  The  Jains  adapted  it  to  their 
Tirthankaras,  the  Buddhists  to  their  Buddhas  and 
Bodhisattvas,  and  the  orthodox  Brahmanical  sects 
to  the  divinities  of  their  own  pantheon:  for,  in  spite 
of  the  diversity  of  sects,  there  is  a  common  spiritual 
basis  to  all  Indian  art  and  religion.  Philosophers 
differed  as  to  the  precise  relation  between  Purusha 
and  Prakriti,  Soul  and  Matter,  and  religious 
teachers  disputed  over  the  different  ways  by  which 
the  soul  might  gain  salvation  ;  but  there  were 
fundamentals  upon  which  all  philosophers  agreed, 
and  the  end  to  be  attained  was  the  same  to  all 
sectarians. 

Just  as  the  great  Hindu  hero,  Krishna,  has  in 

47 


48  THE    LION-LIKE    FIGURE 

the  Mahabharata  a  dual  personality,  one  human 
and  one  divine,  so  this  transcendental,  lion-like 
ideal  always  retained  in  Indian  art  a  symbolism 
of  a  dual  character,  according  as  it  was  applied  to 
a  human  being  or  to  a  deva,  a  spiritual  being,  or 
Mahadeva — God.  When  a  human  being  is  re- 
presented, the  slim-waisted,  lion-like  figure  is  the 
type  of  aristocratic  birth,  the  mark  of  the  Kshatriya, 
or  warrior.  In  the  Amaravati  sculptures,  where 
the  transition  from  the  Sanchi  and  Gandharan 
types  to  the  ideal  Hindu-Buddhist  types  is  very 
evident,  the  Sakya  lords,  the  cousins  of  Prince 
Siddhartha,  all  have  this  type  of  figure.  The  squat, 
full-bellied  figures  generally  .indicate  menials  and 
inferior  races  ;  though,  in  the  same  artistic  cate- 
gory, the  well-fed  Brahmin  guru  and  a  number  of 
fanciful  dwarfish  demons  were  included. 

When  the  divine  being  is  intended  a  distinction 
is  made  by  the  nimbus  round  the  head,  the  aura 
surrounding  the  body,  and  sometimes  the  tirndy 
the  mark  in  the  centre  of  the  forehead,  signifying 
spiritual  insight.  Kings  and  princes  were  also 
honoured  by  the  nimbus  as  a  symbol  of  their 
divine  descent. 

The  aura  represents  the  subtile,  luminous 
envelope,  by  which,  according  to  psychists,  the 
bodies  of  all  human  beings,  animals,  and  even 
trees,  plants,  and  stones  are  surrounded,  though 
to  those  without  a  developed  psychic  sense  it  is 
invisible.  The  Lalita  Vistara  describes  how, 
soon  as  Gautama  had  seated  himself  under  the 


THE   AURA  49 

bodhi-tree,  a  brilliant  light  shone  from  his  body 
which  illuminated,  in  the  ten  points  of  space,  the 
innumerable  spheres  of  Buddha.  Aroused  from 
their  meditations  by  this  wonderful  light,  the 
Buddhas  came  from  every  side  and  caused  to  appear 
all  sorts  of  precious  things,  which  they  offered  to 
the  Bodhisattva.  The  gods  thronged  together 
also,  and  made  a  great  rain  to  fall  from  heaven, 
bringing  with  it  joy  and  well-being.  In  Buddhist 
pictures  the  aura  is  represented  by  thin,  wavy  lines 
of  gold,  which  in  Chinese  are  called  kao  huang — 
"  hair-rays." 

Mr.  E.  R.  Innes,  in  a  recent  number  of  The 
Quests  has  an  interesting  article  on  the  aura, 
as  it  appears  to  the  psychic,  in  human  beings, 
animals, and  in  what  are  usually  called  "inanimate" 
objects.  He  says:  "The  aura  of  nearly  all  plants 
and  wild  animals  is  pleasant  and  health-giving  to 
man.  When  man  meets  another  man  there  is 
always  the  question  of  harmonising  his  aura  to 
that  of  his  companion ;  for  human  auras  are 
specialised."  But  the  sensitive,  "in  contacting 
these  nature-auras,  experiences  great  refreshment. 
They  are  life-giving  and  soul-inspiring  to  his  own 
aura;  they  have  the  effect  of  sweeping  it  clean,  or 
purifying  it ;  they  tend  to  despecialise  it,  or  urge 
it  to  return  to  a  more  simple  or  primitive  mode  of 
motion ;  and  this,  for  most  men,  is  exceedingly  bene- 
ficial, restful,  and  vitalising;  for  civilised  man  is 

*  Hackmann,  "  Buddhism  as  a  Religion,"  p.  208. 
'  January  1910. 


50  THE    OrnA 

very  liable  to  become  too  specialised  ...  in  the 
country,  where  man  is  freer  and  less  likely  to  jostle 
up  against  other  [human]  auras,  the  human  aura 
tends  to  expand  and  to  reach  its  utmost  limit."  Mr. 
Innes  adds  that  perhaps  this  is  the  reason  why, 
in  all  ages,  those  who  desired  to  train  and  develop 
psychic  capacity  have  been  recommended  to  spend 
much  time  in  solitude,  or  in  quiet  retreats,  for  here 
the  aura  expands  and  grows  and  becomes  active 
far  more  easily. 

The  urnd,  which  in  Buddhist  images  of  metal, 
stone,  or  wood  was  often  indicated  by  a  pearl  or 
jewel,  is  the  symbol  of  the  "  eye  divine,"  and  after- 
wards developed  into  the  third  eye  of  Siva.  In 
this  form  it  appears  also  in  later  Buddhist  images. 
It  is  the  sign  of  spiritual  consciousness,  of  soul- 
sight  as  distinguished  from  eye-sight  and  in- 
tellectual perception.  It  was  by  way  of  the  urnd 
that  the  divine  inspiration  reached  the  ushnisha, 
the  prominence  on  the  Buddha's  skull,  regarded 
as  the  seat  of  the  intellectual  faculties.  The  word 
urnd  itself,  literally  meaning  *'  wool,"  has  been  a 
constant  puzzle  to  Sanskrit  and  Pali  scholars.  The 
explanation  of  it  is,  I  believe,  that  the  Divine 
Light,  by  means  of  which  Gautama  gained  his 
Buddhahood,  was  conceived  as  converging  towards 
the  centre  of  his  forehead  from  ''  the  innumerable 
worlds  "  and  entering  his  brain  in  flashes,  like  the 
lightning  in  an  Indian  sky,  which  is  always  drawn 
in  Indian  pictures  in  thin,  wavy  lines,  never  in  the 
zigzag  fashion  of  the  "  forked  lightning  "  usually 


THE    ORNA  51 

represented  in  European  art.  This  practice  is 
based  on  accurate  observation  of  the  lightning" 
usually  seen  in  Indian  skies,  as  instantaneous 
photography  proves. 

Now  a  number  of  such  wavy  lines,  light-flashes, 
or  "  hair-rays  "  converging  to  a  single  point  would 
strikingly  suggest  a  tuft  of  wool,  each  hair  of 
which  would  symbolise  a  ray  of  cosmic  light. 
When  Gautama  at  last  attained  to  perfect  en- 
lightenment, or  perfect  communion  with  the  Divine 
Consciousness,  the  cosmic  light  he  had  absorbed 
was  conceived  as  issuing  from  his  brain  for  the 
enlightenment  of  his  followers.  This  mode  of 
suggesting  a  mystic  idea  by  concrete  symbolism 
is  characteristically  Eastern.^  ' 

The  tremendous  power  attributed  to  this  cosmic 
spiritual  light  is  illustrated  in  the  well-known  story 
of  Kama,  the  god  of  love,  being  burnt  to  ashes 
by  the  fire  which  flashed  from  the  third  eye  of 
Siva,  when,  at  Indra's  instigation,  he  had  dared 
to  disturb  the  great  god's  meditation.  The  com- 
parative helplessness  of  intellectuality  without  the 
divine  inspiration  is  delightfully  symbolised  in 
Hindu  art  by  the  quaint  figure  of  Ganesha,  the 
god  of  worldly  wisdom,  Siva's  son,  who  is  repre- 
sented with  an  elephant's  head  placed  on  an  infant's 
body. 

The  only  physical  action  permitted  in  this 
symbolism  of  spiritual  force  is  some  slight  move- 

^  Mr.  G.  R.  S.  Mead  suggests  to  me  that  the  same  symbolism  may 
underHe  the  sufiism  of  Persia — iiif  meaning  wool. 


52        THE  Asanas  and  mudrAs 

ment  of  the  hands  and  lower  limbs,  when  the 
Buddha,  or  Bodhisattva,  emerged  from  the  state 
of  profound  meditation  to  instruct  or  bless  his 
worshippers :  these  are  the  dsanas,  the  symbolic 
attitudes  of  the  body,  and  the  mudrds,  the  gestures 
of  the  hands.  In  the  state  of  profound  medita- 
tion {vajrdsana)  the  legs  are  firmly  locked  together 
with  the  soles  of  the  feet  turned  upwards,  the 
hands  lying  in  the  lap,  supinated  one  above  the 
other,  sometimes  holding  a  vessel  containing 
amrita,  the  nectar  of  immortality.  This  is  the 
pose  of  absolute  immobility.  The  first  movement 
is  one  which  the  Buddha  made  at  the  crisis  of  his 
temptation  by  Mara,  when,  in  reply  to  the  taunts  of 
the  Spirit  of  Evil,  he  pointed  with  his  right  hand 
to  the  earth,  citing  it  as  a  witness  to  his  attainment 
of  Buddhahood.  This  is  the  bhwni-parsd-mudrd, 
or  the  earth-witness  gesture.  There  are  various 
gestures  having  the  significance  of  teaching,  or 
argument,  when  a  Buddha  or  Bodhisattva  is 
enforcing  points  of  doctrine,  or  "  turning  the 
wheel  of  the  law,"  emphasising  them  by  touch- 
ing or  holding  the  fingers  of  the  left  hand  with 
the  thumb  and  fingers  of  the  right.  The  bestowal 
of  a  blessing  is  indicated  by  the  right  hand 
being  raised,  with  the  palm  turned  outwards,  the 
forearm  sometimes  resting  on  the  right  knee, 
sometimes  lifted  up. 

The  movements  of  the  legs  indicate  various 
degrees  of  removal  from  the  state  of  profound 
meditation,  beginning  with  a  slight  relaxation  of 


dhyAni-buddhas  53 

the  rigid  pose  of  the  yogin,  and  ending  with  stand- 
ing erect,  a  common  attitude  of  Maitreya,  the 
Buddhist  Messiah.  The  symbolism  of  pose  and 
gesture  is  brought  to  a  fine  art  in  the  movements 
of  Indian  dancers,  and  this  part  of  the  subject 
would  make  an  interesting  study  by  itself ;  but  I 
am  not  able  to  pursue  it  further  at  present. 

In  the  philosophical  schools  the  original  simple 
conception  of  the  Buddha's  glorified  personality 
gradually  developed  into  that  of  the  Dhyani- 
Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas.  The  former  represent 
the  spiritual  essence,  or  ideal  form,  belonging  to 
the  Buddhas  who  are  conceived  as  existing  in  a 
higher  plane  of  abstract  thought,  known  as  rupa- 
loka.  Every  Buddha  who  appears  temporarily  on 
earth  to  instruct  humanity  is  a  counterpart  of  one  of 
these  higher  spiritual  entities,  embodied  in  human 
form.  In  order  to  provide  for  a  head  and  pro- 
tector  of  the  Buddhist  faith  during  the  interval 
between  the  disappearance  of  one  earthly  Buddha 
and  the  coming  of  the  next,  the  Dhyani-Buddhas 
produce  from  themselves  spiritual  emanations  of 
less  potency  known  as  Bodhisattvas,  which  are 
sometimes  incarnated  in  human  beings,  e.g.  the 
Dalai  Lama  of  Tibet  is  said  to  be  an  incarnation 
of  the  Bodhisattva  Padmapani,  or  Avalokitesh- 
vara. 

When,  finally,  these  metaphysical  speculations 
extended  to  the  idea  of  an  Adi-Buddha  as  the 
Supreme  Lord  and  Creator  of  the  universe,  there 
was  no  essential  difference  except  in  terminology 

4* 


54      THE   ABSORPTION    OF    BUDDHISM 

between  Mahayana  Buddhism  and  the  orthodox 
Hindu  pantheon. 

Buddhism,  as  a  distinct  sect,  disappeared  from 
the  land  of  its  birth  only  because,  in  the  general 
evolution  of  Hindu  philosophy,  its  doctrines  merged 
into  the  main  current  of  Aryan  thought,  as  the 
river  Jumna  is  lost  when  it  unites  with  the  waters 
of  the  Ganges.  The  ethics  of  Buddhism  became 
an  essential  part  of  Hindu  religious  teaching,  and 
in  this  sense  the  religion  of  Buddha  remains  as 
potent  a  force  in  the  India  of  to-day  as  it  is  in 
any  other  part  of  Asia. 

We  will  pass  on  to  see  how  this  divine  ideal, 
under  the  continued  influence  of  the  philosophical 
schools,  became  further  modified  and  assumed 
other  symbolical  or  allegorical  forms  which  to 
academic  Europe  generally  seem  extravagant  and 
€ven  offensive  ;  though  in  their  Indian  environ- 
ment, even  when  their  meaning  is  not  fully  under- 
stood, they  are  often  profoundly  impressive.  The 
philosophic  mind  of  India,  observing  the  rapid 
working  of  the  great  forces  of  nature  in  a  tropical 
climate,  could  not  fail  to  be  impressed  by  one  fact, 
which  is  less  patent  to  inhabitants  of  temperate 
climates.  The  ravages  caused  by  frequent  shock 
of  earthquake  or  rush  of  mighty  floods  in  the 
Himalayan  regions,  leaving  scars  upon  the  surface 
of  Mother  Earth  which  in  temperate  latitudes 
would  not  disappear  for  several  generations  of 
men,  under  the  stimulating  heat  of  the  tropical 
5un  are  healed  in  a  few  short  years.     Every  hot 


THE    HINDU    DIVINE    IDEAL  55 

season  in  the  plains  of  India  the  scorching  sun 
burns  up  the  vegetation,  silences  the  voices  of 
nature,  and  makes  all  the  land  seem  a  dreary 
desert.  Yet  the  Indian  peasant  knows  full  well 
that  the  cracking  of  the  sun-baked  soil  is  but  one 
of  the  fertilising  processes  of  nature,  and  that 
with  the  first  downpour  of  the  monsoon  rains 
his  fields  will  be  bursting  with  exuberant,  joyful 
life. 

So  the  destructive  powers  which  to  us  seem  to 
be  only  malignant  and  ugly,  fraught  with  evil  to 
mankind,  appear  to  the  Indian  mind  as  an  essential 
part  of  the  Divine  Order,  and  belonging  to  the 
great  Rhythm  of  things.  Siva,  the  Destroyer,  is 
also  the  Regenerator  and  the  Lord  of  Bliss.  Kali, 
the  ruthless  Ender  of  Time,  who  demands  human 
victims  at  her  sacrifices,  is  at  the  same  time  the 
kindly  Mother  of  the  Universe.  The  good  and 
evil  in  nature  both  belong  to  God  :  human  sick- 
ness and  suffering  are  not,  as  the  Greeks  believed, 
due  to  the  envy  of  the  gods,  but  come  from 
avidhyd,  an  imperfect  comprehension  of  the 
Divine  Law.  So,  whereas  the  Greek  conception 
of  the  Divine  Form  confined  beauty  to  an  order  of 
things  which  seemed  pleasant  and  normal  in 
ordinary  human  existence,  the  Indian  artist  makes 
no  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  as  popularly 
understood,  and,  striving  to  show  the  Divine  Idea 
in  both,  tells  us  that  God's  ways  are  not  as  man's 
ways  and  that  the  Divine  Form  embraces  all 
forms.     The  Divine  Idea  embraces  both  beauty 


56  THE    HINDU    DIVINE    IDEAL 

and  ugliness,  as  commonly  understood,  but  trans- 
cends them  both. 

As  soon  as  the  agnosticism  of  Buddha's  original 
teaching  gave  place  to  definite  conceptions  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  as  expounded  in  the  "  Bhaga- 
vad  Gita,"  it  appeared  to  Hindu  philosophers  that 
neither  the  anthropomorphic  ideal  of  the  Greeks 
nor  the  ideal  of  the  Indian  hero  which  the 
Buddhist  and  Jain  artists  had  adopted  was 
adequate  to  symbolise  the  universal  attributes  of 
the  Lord  and  Cause  of  all  things.  When  Krishna, 
having  bestowed  upon  Arjuna  the  gift  of  the 
""  eye  divine,"  conceded  his  prayer  to  reveal  to  him 
his  Universal  Form,  this  is  how  the  resplendent, 
awful  vision,  never  before  seen  by  mortal  man, 
is  described  by  the  Hindu  poet : 

God  !    In  Thy  body  I  see  all  the  gods, 

And  all  the  varied  hosts  of  living  things, 

And  sovereign  Brahma  on  His  lotus-throne, 

And  all  the  rishis  and  the  snakes  divine. 

I  see  Thee  with  unnumbered  arms  and  breasts, 

And  eyes  and  faces  infinite  in  form. 

I  see  not  either  source  or  mean  or  end 

Of  Thee,  the  Universal  Form  and  Lord, 

Bearing  Thy  diadem.  Thy  club,  and  disc. 

I  see  Thee  glowing  as  a  mass  of  light 

In  every  region,  hard  to  look  upon, 

Bright  as  the  blaze  of  burning  fire  and  sun. 

On  every  side,  and  vast  beyond  all  bound. 

The  Undivided  Thou,  the  highest  point 

Of  human  thought,  and  seat  supreme  of  all  ; 

Eternal  law's  undying  guardian  Thou  ; 

The  everlasting  Cause  Thou  seem'st  to  me. 

I  see  not  Thy  beginning,  mean,  or  end  ; 


THE    HINDU    DIVINE   IDEAL  57 

Thy  strength,  Thy  arms,  are  infinite  alike, 

And  unto  Thee  the  sun  and  moon  are  eyes  ; 

I  see  Thy  face,  that  glows  as  sacred  fire, 

And  with  its  radiance  heats  the  universe  ; 

For  all  the  heavenly  regions  and  the  space 

Twixt  earth  and  heaven  are  filled  by  Thee  alone.* 

Even  to  Arjuna,  though  fortified  with  super- 
natural strength,  this  tremendous  apparition  seemed 
insupportable,  and  he  begged  of  Krishna  to  resume 
his  "  milder,  four-armed  form,"  that  which,  though 
revealing  his  universal  attributes,  was  not  too 
awful  for  man  to  look  upon. 

Compared  with  such  a  conception  of  the  uni- 
versal Divine  Form,  the  anthropomorphic  gods  of 
Greece  and  Rome  seem  puny  and  devoid  of 
imagination,  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
those  European  critics  are  altogether  unjust  and 
lacking  in  artistic  insight  who  would  judge  by 
the  ordinary  conventions  and  canons  of  European 
art  the  efforts  of  Indian  artists  to  express  the 
supernatural  and  superhuman  by  forms  not  strictly 
in  accordance  with  known  physiological  laws. 
Art  does  not  need  to  be  justified  by  the  anatomist, 
or  the  chemist,  or  by  any  other  scientific  specialist. 
Every  artistic  convention  is  justified  if  it  is  used 
artistically  and  expresses  the  idea  which  the  artist 
wishes  to  convey.  Indian  art  is  easily  intelligible 
to  those  who  will  read  it  in  the  light  of  Indian 
religion  and  philosophy,  which  inspired  both  the 
artists  and  the  people  towhomtheart  was  addressed. 

*  The   "  Bhagavad-Gita,"   pp.  121-2,  translated   by  John   Davies. 
Triibner's  Oriental  Series. 


58  THE    LIMITATIONS   OF   ART 

But,  like  all  other  art,  it  must  be  seen  in  its  local 
environment,  and  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  thought 
which  created  it.  Nothing  can  be  more  mislead- 
ing than  to  judge  it  by  the  isolated  and  generally 
inferior  specimens  which  are  seen  in  European 
museums,  very  few  of  which  have,  until  recently, 
considered  Indian  sculpture  and  paintingas  worthy 
of  serious  study  by  Western  artists. 

India  has  always  clearly  recognised  the  limita- 
tions of  artisticexpression.  Art  is  knowledge ;  art  is 
expression.  Therefore  art  cannot  supply  a  symbol 
for  the  Inexpressible,  the  Unknowable,  and  the 
Unconditioned.  Though  only  the  Quran  definitely 
placed  a  ban  upon  using  any  animate  forms  in  art, 
the  objection  which  underlies  the  prohibition  did 
not  originate  with  Islam.  It  is  as  old  as  the 
Vedas.  The  very  word  with  which  the  Universal 
Self  was  expressed  in  Hindu  philosophy  was  so 
holy  that  it  was  profanation  for  common  lips  to 
utter  it.  In  a  great  Hindu  temple  in  Southern 
India  it  is  represented  by  Space — an  empty  cell. 
In  Indian  colour-symbolism  it  is  expressed  by 
black,  the  absence  of  colour. 

The  first  comprehensible  and  expressible  mani- 
festation of  the  Unknowable,  before  creation  itself, 
was  conceived  by  ancient  philosophers  as  the  Egg, 
or  Womb  of  the  Universe,  and  was  afterwards 
symbolised  in  India  by  a  female  form.  Kali,  as 
the  Mother  of  all  the  Gods.  I  believe  that  the 
first  symbols  in  art  ever  used  by  the  teachers 
of  Vedic  philosophy  were  those  smooth,  egg-shaped 


INDIAN    SYMBOLISM  59 

stones,  untouched  by  human  craftsmen,  which  are 
placed  beneath  sacred  trees  and  still  worshipped 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  India,  though 
the  meaning  of  the  symbolism  seems  to  be  for- 
gotten, except  perhaps  by  a  few  intellectual 
Brahmins. 

The  stones  symbolise  the  First  Germ,  the  Egg 
of  the  Universe.  The  tree,  with  its  spreading 
branches  and  leaves,  is  the  Universe  itself:  a  well- 
known  symbol  of  the  One  in  many  used  by  wor- 
shippers of  Vishnu,  the  Preserver,  in  the  present 
day.  The  snake  which,  carved  in  stone,  is  often 
worshipped  at  the  same  place,  is  a  recognised 
symbol  of  reincarnation,  the  process  by  which  the 
evolution  of  the  soul  is  gained — a  universal  belief 
in  India.  Thus  the  stone,  the  tree,  and  the  serpent 
represent  the  birth  and  evolution  of  the  cosmos, 
and  the  passage  of  the  soul  to  its  goal  in  Nirvana; 
and  in  this  beautiful  symbolism  lies  the  root  of 
Indian  art. 

Of  course  it  is  probably  the  case  that  the  use 
of  these  symbols  originated  with  very  primitive 
superstitions,  but  I  think  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  they  were  appropriated  and  explained 
by  Hindu  religious  teachers  in  their  own  way, 
just  as  the  Christian  churches  have  adopted  many 
primitive  pagan  symbols  in  their  ritual.  In  the 
symbolism  of  all  religions  it  is  necessary  to 
recognise  a  process  of  evolution  following  the 
evolution  of  the  religion  itself.  All  Indian  sym- 
bolism has  a  double  meaning,  one  appealing  to  the 


6o  VISHNU    THE    PRESERVER 

popular  mind,  the  other  to  the  philosopher  and 
religious  teacher. 

When  Hindu  religious  thought  had  arrived 
at  the  idea  that  the  two  conditions  known  as 
Good  and  Evil,  Life,  and  Death,  Creation  and 
Destruction,  Beauty  and  Ugliness,  were  both  part 
of  a  divinely  appointed  order  of  things,  it  became 
necessary  to  assume  a  third  one,  a  mean,  to  main- 
tain the  equilibrium  of  the  cosmos  between  these 
pairs  of  opposites. 

It  is  Vishnu,  the  Preserver,  who  stands  between 
the  opposing  forces  of  good  and  evil  and  sees  that 
right  prevails  in  the  end.  "I  will  take  care  that 
the  enemies  of  the  gods  shall  not  partake  of  the 
precious  draught  [of  immortality] ;  that  they  shall 
share  in  the  labour  alone." 

The  great  cosmic  struggle  between  good  and 
evil,  or  between  gods  and  demons,  is  told  allegoric- 
ally  in  the  Mahabharata  and  in  the  Puranas  as 
the  churning  of  the  waters  of  chaos,  the  primordial 
nature-element  called  the  Sea  of  Milk.  It  is  a 
very  favourite  subject  with  Hindu  sculptors  and 
painters. 

This  is  how  the  story  runs  : 

In  consequence  of  an  offence  given  by  Indra, 
the  ruler  of  the  sky,  to  a  powerful  rishi,  who  was 
an  incarnation  of  Siva,  all  the  gods  lost  virtue  ;  the 
three  regions,  earth,  sky,  and  heaven  were  wholly 
deprived  of  prosperity  and  energy,  and  the  enemies 
of  the  gods,  the  asuras,  put  forth  all  their  strength. 

^  The  Vishnu  Purana,  translated  by  H.  H.  Wilson,  p.  75. 


PLATE   III 


THE   CHURNING    OF    THE    OCEAN      6i 

Instructed  by  Vishnu,  the  gods  entered  into  an 
alliance  with  the  asuras  in  order  to  obtain  the 
nectar  of  immortality,  amrita.  They  had  been 
told  that  it  must  be  done  by  churning  the  Sea  of 
Milk  with  the  holy  mountain,  Mandara,  the  abode 
of  the  gods.  Ananta,  the  great  serpent  on  which 
Vishnu  reposed  (symbolising  eternity)  upraised 
the  mountain  with  the  woods  thereon  and  the 
dwellers  in  those  woods,  and  brought  it  to  the 
Sea  of  Milk,  the  waters  of  which  were  radiant  as 
the  thin,  shining  clouds  of  autumn.  Mandara 
was  the  churning-stick  ;  Vishnu  himself,  in  the 
form  of  a  mighty  tortoise,  served  as  a  pivot;  Ananta 
was  the  cord.  The  gods  and  asuras,  having  poured 
into  the  sea  various  kinds  of  medicinal  herbs, 
ranged  themselves  at  either  end  of  the  serpent, 
and  the  churning  began. 

Vishnu,  manifesting  himself  in  various  forms, 
took  part  with  the  gods.  As  Krishna  he  had 
wisely  stationed  the  gods  at  the  tail  of  the  serpent 
and  the  asuras  at  the  head  ;  so  that,  scorched  by 
the  flames  emitted  from  Ananta's  distended  hood, 
the  demons  were  at  a  disadvantage,  while  the 
clouds  driven  towards  his  tail  by  the  breath  of  his 
mouth,  refreshed  the  gods  with  revivifying  showers. 
"  The  Holder  of  the  Mace  and  Discus  [Vishnu]  was 
present  in  other  forms  amongst  the  gods  and 
demons,  and  assisted  to  drag  the  monarch  of  the 
serpent  race ;  and  in  another  vast  body  he  sat  on 
the  mountain.  With  one  portion  of  his  energy, 
unseen  by  gods  or  demons,  he  sustained  the  ser- 


62      THE    CHURNING   OF    THE    OCEAN 

pent-king ;  and  with  another  infused  vigour  into 
the  gods." 

From  the  Sea  of  Milk  thus  churned  by  gods 
and  demons  uprose  the  divine  cow  Surabhi,  the 
fountain  of  milk,  first  sustenance  of  the  human 
race.  Then  came  Varuni,  the  deity  of  wine,  her 
eyes  rolling  with  intoxication.  Next,  from  the 
whirlpool  of  the  deep,  came  the  celestial  Parijata 
tree,  symbol  of  all  lovely  flowers  and  precious  fruits 
with  which  the  earth  is  blessed.  Then  came  the 
joys  of  dance  and  song,  the  apsarasas,  nymphs 
of  heaven  of  surprising  loveliness,  "endowed  with 
beauty  and  with  taste."  The  cool-rayed  moon 
next  rose,  and  was  seized  by  Mahadeva  (Siva). 

And  then  poison  was  engendered  by  the  churn- 
ing, which  began  to  overspread  the  earth  with  fire 
and  sulphureous  fumes.  To  save  creation,  Siva, 
at  Brahma's  request,  swallowed  the  poison  and 
held  it  in  his  throat,  whence  he  became  thereafter 
blue-throated  {nila-kantha^ 

At  last  Dhanwantari,  the  divine  chemist, 
appeared,  robed  in  white  and  bearing  in  his  hand 
the  cup  of  anirita.  Then  seated  on  a  full-blown 
lotus  and  holding  a  lotus  in  her  hand,  the  goddess 
of  prosperity,  Lakshmi,  radiant  with  beauty,  rose 
from  the  waves.^  "  The  great  sages,  enraptured^ 
hymned  her  with  the  song  dedicated  to  her  praise. 
Visvawasu  and  other  heavenly  quiristers  sang,  and 

^  This  clearly  refers  to  violent  volcanic  disturbances  on  the  earth  yi 
prehistoric  times. 
2  See  Plate  XXI. 


THE    CHURNING   OF   THE    OCEAN      63 

Ghritachi  and  other  celestial  nymphs  danced  before 
hen  Ganga  and  other  holy  streams  attended  for 
her  ablutions  ;  and  the  elephants  of  the  skies  (the 
clouds)  taking  up  their  pure  waters  in  vases  of 
gold,  poured  them  on  the  goddess,  the  queen  of 
the  universal  world."  Lakshmi,  when  bathed, 
attired,  and  adorned,  threw  herself  upon  the  breast 
of  Vishnu,  and,  there  reclining,  turned  her  eyes 
upon  the  deities,  who  were  inspired  with  rapture 
by  her  gaze. 

The  asuras,  indignant  at  the  preference  shown 
by  the  lovely  goddess,  snatched  the  amrita  cup 
from  the  hand  of  Dhanwantari ;  but  Vishnu,  assum- 
ing a  female  form,  fascinated  and  deluded  them, 
and,  having  recovered  the  precious  cup,  gave  it  to 
the  gods.  The  latter,  revived  by  the  ambrosial 
draught,  quickly  overcame  the  desperate  on- 
slaughts of  the  demons  and  drove  them  to  the 
nether  realms  of  Patala  :  finally,  with  great  rejoic- 
ing, the  gods  did  homage  to  Vishnu,  and,  having 
restored  the  mountain  Mandara  to  its  former  base, 
they  left  the  amrita  in  the  safe  keeping  of  Indra 
and  resumed  their  reign  in  heaven.^ 

The  allegory  seems  to  contain  reminiscences 
of  one  of  those  terrible  droughts  and  famines  which 
so  often  desolate  Asiatic  countries.  Amrita, 
the  nectar  for  which  the  gods  and  demons  con- 
tended, is  the  rain,  of  which  Indra,  the  god  of  the 
sky  whose  vdhan,  or  vehicle,  is  the  white  elephant 
(the  rain-cloud),  is  the  keeper.    Mandara,  thechurn- 

^  The  Vishnu  Purana,  translated  by  H.  H.  Wilson. 


64       THE    CHURNING   OF    THE    OCEAN 

ing-stick,  stands  for  the  Himalayas,  which  attract 
the  monsoon  clouds  and  cause  them  to  discharge 
their  precious  nectar,  reviving  the  earth  and  bring- 
ing the  beauteous  goddess  of  prosperity  to  bless 
mankind.  The  apsarasas  are  the  mists  which 
dance  in  the  morning  sunlight. 

The  subject  is  a  favourite  one  in  Indian  art,  but 
it  was  never  treated  on  so  magnificent  a  scale  or 
with  so  splendid  an  effect  as  in  the  bas-reliefs  which 
adorn  the  colonnades  of  the  great  temple  of  Angkor 
Vat,  in  Kambodia,  built  about  the  twelfth  century 
by  Stlrya-varman  IL,  one  of  the  last  of  the  Hindu 
kings  who  ruled  over  the  Indian  colony  in  the 
Further  East.  The  Kambodian  temples  rank 
high  among  the  greatest  architectural  and  artistic 
monuments  of  the  world,  though  they  are  as  yet 
little  known  in  Europe. 

A  detailed  description  of  the  Angkor  temple 
is  given  by  Fergusson.^  Casts  of  some  of  the 
bas-reliefs  are  in  the  Royal  Ethnographic  Museum, 
Berlin,  and  in  the  Trocadero,  Paris,  and  it  is  to 
be  regretted  that  none  of  our  national  museums 
possess  any  reproductions  of  these  great  works. 
Plate  IV.  gives  the  central  figure  in  the  relief 
representing  the  churning  of  the  ocean,  the  finest 
of  the  series.  The  grand  design  of  the  whole 
cannot  be  realised  from  so  small  a  section,  but  it 
may  give  some  idea  of  its  imaginative  power  and 
masterful  vigour. 

The  four-armed  figure  is  Vishnu,  "the  Wielder 

*  "Indian  Architecture,"  Revised  Edition  1910,  vol.  ii.,  p.  380. 


PLATE  IV 


THE   CHURNING   OF   THE   OCEAN 


THE    CHURNING   OF    THE    OCEAN      63 

of  the  Mace  and  Discus,"  who  stands  in  front  of 
the  churning-stick — the  mountain  Mandara,  which 
is  pivoted  on  the  back  of  the  tortoise — controlling 
the  cosmic  tug-of-war.  The  gods  and  asuras, 
ranged  on  opposite  sides,  are  using  the  body  of 
the  great  serpent  Ananta  for  the  churning-rope. 
In  another  form  Vishnu  manifests  himself  on  the 
top  of  the  churning-stick  to  maintain  its  equili- 
brium. Crowds  of  attendant  spirits  are  dancing 
in  the  air,  joyously  anticipating  the  triumph  of 
Vishnu  and  the  gods. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   TRIMURTI 

The  three  conditions,  or  gimas — i.e.  the  opposing 
extremes  and  the  equilibrating  mean,  represented 
allegorically  by  the  gods,  the  asuras,  and  by 
Vishnu,  were  recognised  in  Hindu  philosophy  as 
attributes  of  the  material  manifestation  of  Ishvara, 
the  Supreme  Lord. 

The  famous  Hymn  of  Creation  in  the  Rig- 
Veda  (x.  1 29)  describes  the  universe  as  proceeding 
from  the  absolute  Brahman,  the  Universal  Spirit, 
the  Unknowable,  whose  first  manifestation  when 
passing  into  a  conditioned  state — comparable  to 
the  passing  of  a  human  being  from  the  state  of 
profound  sleep  to  a  state  of  dreaming  and  then 
of  waking — is  called  Ishvara.  The  latter  in  the 
Hindu  theogony  stands  nearest  to  the  Western 
idea  of  an  active,  personal  God. 

The  glory  of  Ishvara  as  Purusha,  or  Spirit, 
makes  manifest  Prakriti,  the  Essence  of  Matter, 
inherent  in  Brahman,  but  until  now  unmanifested. 
Purusha,  through  its  divine  power  called  saktiy 
the  female  principle,  causes  Prakriti  to  take  form. 

66 


5   =8 


-   S 


THE   TRIMORTI  67 

Inherent  in  Prakriti  are  three  attributes,  or  aspects, 
known  as  the  Trimtlrti,  which  are  symbolised  both 
in  Hindu  and  in  Mahayana  Buddhist  sculpture  and 
painting  by  a  male  three-headed  divinity  (Plate  V.) 
or  separately  as  three  divinities,  Brahma,  Vishnu, 
and  Siva.  In  the  theogony  of  Mahayana  Buddhism 
the  Hindu  Trimtirti  were  identified  with  Buddha, 
Sangha,  and  Dharma  respectively. 

Each  aspect  of  the  Trimtlrti  is  correlated  to 
Purusha  and  Prakriti  as  follows :  Brahma,  in 
relation  to  Purusha,  or  Spirit,  represents  Being, 
or  Truth ;  as  related  to  Prakriti,  or  matter,  he 
performs  the  function  of  Creator,  and  represents 
the  condition  of  activity,  or  motion.  Vishnu,  as 
related  to  Purusha,  represents  thought-power ;  as 
related  to  Prakriti,  he  is  the  Preserver,  represent- 
ing equilibrium  and  rhythm.  Siva,  as  related  to 
Purusha,  represents  Bliss — the  joy  of  creation  and 
the  perfect  beatitude  of  Nirvana;  but  in  relation  to 
Prakriti  he  is  the  Destroyer,  the  dissolving  power — 
which  connotes,  however,  the  power  of  regeneration. 

This  philosophic  concept  of  the  evolution  of 
the  universe  is  often  symbolised  in  Hindu  art  by 
the  figure  of  Ishvara,  under  the  name  of  Narayana, 
sleeping  on  the  waters  of  chaos  on  the  serpent 
Sesha,  or  Ananta,  "  the  Endless  " — the  symbol 
of  eternity,  which  encircled  the  world  in  its  vast 
coils — while  Brahma,  the  Creator,  appears  en- 
throned upon  a  mystic  lotus-flower,  the  symbol 
of  purity  and  heavenly  birth,  which  is  growing 
from  Narayana's  navel. 


68  HINDU    METAPHYSICS 

To  understand  this  allegory  it  is  necessary  to 
know  that  the  physical  basis  of  Hindu  metaphysics, 
upon  which  its  artistic  symbolism  is  founded,  is 
centralised  in  the  apparent  movement  of  the  sun 
round  the  earth,  of  which  the  cosmic  cross  was  the 
symbol  in  the  ancient  Aryan  world.  The  four 
points  of  the  cross  indicated  the  position  of  the 
sun  at  midnight,  sunrise,  noon,  and  at  sunset 
respectively.  ^ 

Narayana  sleeping,  or  absorbed  in  Yoga,  on  the 
primordial  waters,  is  the  sun  from  the  time  it 
disappears  below  the  horizon  until  it  rises  again. 
Brahmi,  born  from  the  lotus  which  grows  from 
Narayana's  navel,  is  the  sunrise  which  causes  the 
lotus-flowers  to  open.  Siva,  who  in  the  struggle 
between  the  devas  and  astiras,  or  between  light 
and  darkness,  claims  the  moon  for  his  own,  is 
the  sun  setting  behind  the  snow-clad  Himalayan 
peaks,  when  the  moon  rises  to  adorn  Mahadeva's 
brow.  Vishnu,  the  principle  of  equilibrium,  is  the 
sun  at  noon,  standing  between  Brahmi  and  Siva 
as  mediator. 

^  One  of  the  most  ancient  symbols  of  Hinduism  is  the  four-headed 
lingantf  many  examples  of  which  are  preserved  in  the  Indian  Museum, 
Calcutta.  The  short  pillar  on  which  the  heads  are  displayed  cross- 
wise stands  for  Ishvara.  The  four  heads  are  those  of  the  four  central 
deities  of  the  Hindu  pantheon  (afterwards  resolved  into  three — the 
TrimArti),  namely,  Vishnu,  Brahma,  SClrya,  and  Siva.  Vishnu,  in  his 
dual  form,  Narayana- Vishnu — the  one  representing  his  yogic  state,  the 
other  his  active  cosmical  powers,  eventually  superseded  Stirya,  whose 
images  are  often  difficult  to  distinguish  from  those  of  Vishnu.  The 
four  points  of  the  cosmic  cross,  starting  from  the  base,  thus  became 
Narayana,  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva. 


THE   SWASTIKA  69 

The  circumambulation  of  a  shrine,  the  most 
ancient  of  rites  and  part  of  the  ritual  of  Hindu  wor- 
ship at  the  present  day,  and  the  orthodox  Brahmin's 
sandhya,  or  the  prayer  which  he  addresses  to  the 
Supreme  Being  at  sunrise,  noon,  and  sunset,  both 
belong  to  the  ancient  symbolism  of  sun-worship. 

The  apparent  movement  of  the  sun  from  east 
to  west  was  also  indicated  by  the  old-world 
symbol,  the  swastika,  formed  by  adding  four  short 
lines  of  direction  to  the  four  points  of  the  cosmic 
cross.  According  to  Count  D'Alviella  it  is  the 
exclusive  property  of  the  Aryan  race.  '  The  ascend- 
ing movement  of  the  sun  naturally  represented  the 
whole  principle  of  order  and  well-being  in  the 
universe,  and  thus  the  swastika  became  the  sym- 
bol of  life  and  of  man's  material  prosperity.  The 
reverse  movement,  indicated  by  the  sauwastika, 
was  the  descending  principle,  connoting  disorder 
and  dissolution.  ' 

The  philosophic  debates  in  the  orthodox  Hindu 
schools  eventually  resolved  the  four  central  deities 
into  three,  by  identifying  Stirya  with  Vishnu. 
Thus  was  evolved  the  idea  of  the  Trimtlrti,  the 
three  aspects  of  the  One,  which  have  their  material 
manifestation  in  the  three  cosmic  forces,  conditions, 
or  gunas. 

All  the  innumerable  gods  and  goddesses  of 
the  Hindu  pantheon  are  sub-manifestations  of  the 
three  gunas,  and  Sukracharya,  one  of  the  few 
Sanskrit  writers  on  art  whose  works  are  at  present 
known,  classifies  them  as  follows  : 
5* 


70  CLASSIFICATION    OF    IMAGES 

Sattvik.  "  An  image  of  God,  sitting  in  medi- 
tation in  the  posture  of  a  yogin,  with  hands  turned, 
as  if  granting  boon  or  blessing  to  his  worshippers, 
surrounded  by  Indra  and  other  gods  praying  and 
worshipping." 

Brahma,  the  personification  of  prayer,  is  the 
archetype  of  sattvik  images. 

Rajasik.  "  An  image  seated  upon  a  vdhan, 
or  vehicle,  adorned  with  various  ornaments  with 
hands  holding  weapons,  as  well  as  granting  boon 
or  blessing." 

Vishnu,  as  the  Preserver,  is  the  representative 
of  the  rajasik  type. 

Tamasik.  "  A  terrible  armed  figure  fighting 
and  destroying  demons." 

These  images  are  typified  by  Siva  and  Dtlrga. 

The  imagery  and  symbolism  with  which  Hindu 
poets  and  artists  clothed  these  metaphysical  ideas 
were  generally  drawn  from  the  wonderful  nature 
of  the  Himalayan  mountains  and  valleys.  Brahmi, 
from  being  the  symbol  of  sunrise,  developed  into 
the  personification  of  prayer,  because  to  the  sun- 
rise all  the  prayers  of  the  Aryan  race  had  been 
addressed  from  time  immemorial.  It  was  at  the 
end  of  the  winding  lotus-stalk  growing  in  the 
cosmic  waters  that  the  lovely  flower  of  the  morning 
sun  blossomed,  aum,  mani  padme  hum  :  "  Hail, 
Lord  Creator !  the  Jewel  is  in  the  Lotus,"  was  the 
invocation  of  the  rising  sun  expressed  in  different 
formularies  by  all  the  ancient  Aryan  world. 

As  Creator,  Brahma  presided  over  the  fertilising 


PLATE  VI 


BRAHMA  71 

element,  water.  His  vdhan  was  appropriately  the 
imperial  swan,  or  the  lordly  wild  goose,  which 
had  its  home  in  the  Himalayan  lakes. ^  His  colour- 
symbol  was  red,  like  the  rising  sun,  whose  rays 
brought  life  to  the  sleeping  world,  and  red  lotuses 
were  the  flowers  which  his  worshippers  offered  to 
him. 

The  finest  image  of  Brahma  now  extant  is 
probably  that  which  is  now  preserved  in  the 
Ethnological  Museum,  Leyden,  Plate  VI.  It  is 
one  of  the  great  monuments  of  the  Brahmanical 
period  of  Indian  art  in  Java,  which  lasted  from 
about  900  to  1 500  A.D.  The  Creator  is  represented 
with  four  heads  crowned  with  massive  tiaras, 
symbolising  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.  Two 
hands  clasped  in  front  hold  a  phial  which  contains 
the  divine  nectar,  the  elixir  of  life  :  each  of  the 
others  holds  a  pilgrim's  water-vessel,  water  being 
regarded  as  the  creative  element.  Intertwined  with 
the  water-vessel  is  the  sacred  lotus,  the  Creator's 
floral  emblem.  Behind  the  lower  part  of  the 
figure,  unfortunatelymutilated,  is  Br3.hm3!s  vd/ian, 
the  swan.  The  arms  and  body  of  the  deity  are 
ornamented  with  richly  wrought  jewellery,  and 
over  his  left  shoulder  hangs  the  sacred  thread, 
the  upavita,  worn  by  Brahmins. 

An     awe-inspiring     dignity    and    worshipful 
solemnity  pervade  this  conception  of  the  Grand- 

^  The  Sanskrit  word  for  a  swan,  or  goose,  hamsa,  is  convertible 
into  SA — HAM  =  I  AM  HE,  i.e.  Brahma.  In  poetry  the  flight  of  the  swan 
is  compared  to  that  of  the  parting  soul. 


72  brahmA 

sire  of  the  human  race,  the  Dyaus-pitar,  Heavenly 
Father,  Giver  of  Life  and  Receiver  of  all  prayers. 
In  the  presence  of  great  art  like  this  it  is  mere 
impertinence  to  inquire  whether  such  conventions 
as  four  heads  and  arms  are  permissible.  In  this 
case  the  end  which  the  artist  had  in  view  is  attained, 
and  the  conventions  are  justified  thereby.  The 
test  of  good  art,  as  Rodin  has  said,  is  that  the  eye 
shall  be  perfectly  satisfied.  Here  there  is  nothing 
that  can  be  taken  away,  and  nothing  that  can  be 
added.  One  can  only  say  that  the  artist  has 
attained  to  his  ideal,  and  that  ideal  is  noble  and 
sufficient.  No  human  art  is  absolute  and  final;  it 
is  only  the  dilettante  who  delights  in  fixing  rules 
for  it  to  bring  it  within  the  compass  of  his  own 
understanding. 

It  may  be  granted  that  it  is  only  in  truly  in- 
spired art  that  such  transcendental  conceptions  of 
the  godlike  can  be  tolerated  from  a  purely  aesthetic 
standpoint,  but  it  is  just  the  privilege  of  genius 
to  break  away  from  the  limitations  which  bind 
mediocrity.  Hindu  art  has  been  judged  in  Europe, 
particularly  in  England,  not  by  these  masterpieces 
of  the  pre-Muhammadan  epoch,  but  by  the  puerile 
illustrations  of  the  Hindu  pantheon  given  by  Moor 
and  other  still  more  prejudiced  writers,  or  by  de- 
based modern  types  collected  at  South  Kensington 
and  elsewhere.  It  is  as  if  an  Indian  critic  were  to 
judge  the  art  of  the  Renaissance  in  Europe  by  the 
garden  gods  and  goddesses  now  imported  into 
India  as  Italian  art. 


VISHNU  73 

Vishnu,  the  Preserver  (Plate  III.),  the  second 
of  the  Trimtirti,  ruled  over  the  firmament,  and 
his  colour  is  the  deep  transparent  blue,  pure  as 
crystal,  of  the  Himalayan  sky  when  it  has  been 
swept  by  the  monsoon  storms.  His  upright,  rigid, 
columnar  pose  fitly  expresses  his  character  as  the 
Pillar  of  the  universe ;  and  what  could  better 
express  his  sustaining,  equilibrating  power  than 
his  vdhan,  Garuda,  the  eagle  with  outstretched 
wings,  poised  motionless  in  mid-heaven  over  a 
Himalayan  valley?^ 

The  sun  which  sustains  the  universe  was  his 
chief  emblem,  and  perhaps  the  original  idea  of  the 
many-armed  images  which  represented  Vishnu 
(Plate  XX.)  was  to  suggest  the  all-pervading  rays 
of  the  midday  sun.  His  chakra,  the  Wheel  of 
Life,  which,  like  the  Buddhist  Wheel  of  the  Law, 
seems  to  have  been  evolved  from  the  swastika, 
symbolised  not  the  sun  itself  but  its  apparent 
revolution  round  the  earth.  It  generally  has  the 
cosmic  cross  placed  within  it  (Plate  III.).  The 
Upanishads  thus  explain  its  mystical  meaning  : 

"As  the  spokes  of  a  wheel  are  attached  to  the 
nave,  so  are  all  things  attached  to  Life.  This  Life 
ought  to  be  approached  with  faith  and  reverence, 

^  Akbar's  Hindu  architects  used  the  idea  of  the  cosmic  pillar  in  the 
Diwan-i-khas  at  Fatehpur-sikri,  raising  the  imperial  throne  upon  a 
column  with  a  colossal  bracketed  capital  which  was  approached  from  a 
gallery  by  four  gangways  symbolising  the  four  quarters  of  the  earth.  A 
cast  of  it  is  in  the  Indian  Section  of  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum, 
South  Kensington. 


74  VISHNU 

and  viewed  as  an  immensity  which  abides  in  its 
own  glory.  That  immensity  extended  from  above, 
from  below,  from  behind  and  from  before,  from 
the  south  and  from  the  north.  It  is  the  soul  of 
the  universe;  it  is  God  Himself."^ 

Vishnu  is  also  represented  by  the  tree  whose 
trunk  is  the  upright  limb  of  the  cosmic  cross.  It 
has  its  branches,  leaves,  and  fruit  in  the  starry 
heavens.  This  is  analogous  to  the  Buddhist 
symbolism  in  which  the  heavenly  dome  is  likened 
to  an  umbrella  ;  a  series  of  umbrellas  superimposed 
forming  the  "  tee  "  placed  on  the  top  of  a  stupa 
to  represent  the  different  spheres  or  planes  through 
which  the  soul  ascends  to  Nirvana. 

The  image  of  Vishnu  in  Plate  III.  is  another 
striking  example  of  Hindu  sculpture  in  Java 
which  is  fully  equal  to  the  finest  Buddhist  art  at 
B6r6budtlr.  The  rigid  uprightness  of  the  figure 
is  clearly  intended  to  express  Vishnu's  special 
manifestation  as  the  cosmic  pillar,  or  tree,  as  the 
Preserver  who  keeps  the  balance  between  the  con- 
tending forces  of  light  and  darkness,  rather  than 
the  universal  attributes  which  are  assigned  to  him 
by  the  Vaishnavaite  sect  in  modern  Hinduism. 

He  is  here  represented  with  four  arms,  instead 
of  eight,  which  are  used  to  emphasise  by  repetition 
the  columnar  uprightness  of  the  body.  The 
attributes  displayed  are  the  discus,  or  chakra, 
and    the   mace,  gadha,   on  the    right   side ;    on 

*  Translated  by  Monier  Williams. 


SIVA  75 

the  left,  the  conch-shell,  and  another  which  is 
broken.^ 

The  third  of  the  Trimtirti,^  Siva,  the  Destroyer, 
Regenerator,  and  Lord  of  Bliss,  found  a  fitting 
material  symbol  in  the  snow-clad  mountain-peak. 
Fire  was  his  element,  at  once  destructive,  purify- 
ing, and  regenerative.  Possibly  some  active  vol- 
cano in  the  Himalayan  regions  may  have  first 
suggested  this  association  ;  but  Siva's  destructive 
forces  would  be  sufficiently  represented  by  the  fury 
of  Himalayan  storms  and  by  the  desolation  caused 
by  the  frequent  earthquakes  which  rent  the  moun- 
tain-sides. Nothing  could  more  finely  symbolise 
the  spiritual  power  of  meditation  than  the  serene 
majesty  of  the  highest  Himalayan  peaks  in  the 
morning  sunlight,  when  Siva's  "  blue-throat "  is 
seen  beneath  the  snow-line ;  or  at  dusk,  when  the 
crescent  moon  which  adorns  the  great  god's  brow 
rises  in  mystic  beauty  over  the  snowy  ridge.  The 
white  ashes  of  the  sacrificial  fire  and  the  blue  throat 
of  the  flame  are  analogous  symbols. 

The  cobra  became  Siva's  especial  emblem  be- 
cause, while  its  spiral  coil  represented  the  principle 
of  cosmic  evolution,  or  of  life,  the  deadly  poison  con- 
tained in  its  fangs  represented  the  principle  of  invo- 
lution, or  death  ;  and  its  habit  of  shedding  its  skin 
periodically  was  asymbol  of  reincarnation,  or  rebirth. 

^  The  mystical  meaning  of  Vishnu's  attributes  are  explained  in  detail 
in  the  description  of  Plate  XX,,  Part  II,,  below, 

2  In  the  great  sculpture  at  Elephanta,  Plate  V,,  Siva  appears  in  the 
middle  of  the  TrimArti.  This  interchange  of  symbolism  is  explained 
farther  on. 


76  SIVA 

Siva's  vdhan  was  the  bull,  Nandi,  which  carried 
the  sacrificial  wood,  and  also  symbolised  his  genera- 
tiv^e  force.  On  the  spiritual  plane  Nandi  represents 
dharma,  or  the  whole  duty  of  the  Hindu.  The 
Ganges  and  other  sacred  rivers  which  flowed  from 
Himalayan  glaciers  through  the  mountain  forests, 
"  the  great  god's  hair,"  were  naturally  associated 
with  the  idea  of  spiritual  purity  represented  by 
Siva  himself. 

The  philosophical  concept  of  the  Trimtirti,  the 
three  Aspects  of  the  Supreme,  correlated  with  the 
three  gunas  or  conditions  inherent  in  Prakriti, 
affords  a  common  basis  of  belief  for  all  Hindu 
sects ;  but  the  two  deities,  Vishnu  and  Siva,  gradu- 
ally absorbed  the  special  attributes  of  Brahma,  who, 
as  the  chief  divinity  of  a  sect,  ceased  to  claim  many 
votaries  for  two  reasons :  first,  because,  as  a 
symbol  of  prayer,  he  was  held  to  be  present  in  all 
worship;  secondly,  because,  as  a  symbol  of  creation, 
his  special  work  in  the  cosmos  was  finished  and 
he  could  no  longer  be  moved  by  prayer.  At  the 
present  time  there  are  not  more  than  one  or  two 
temples  specially  dedicated  to  Brahma  in  the  whole 
of  India,  though  his  image  often  appears  in  the 
temples  of  other  sects. 

This  process  of  absorption  resolved  orthodox 
Hinduism  into  the  two  main  sects  which  exist  at 
the  present  day;  the  Vaishnavaites,  the  devotees 
of  Vishnu,  who  are  in  a  majority  in  Northern 
India  ;  the  Saivaites,  those  of  Siva,  who  are  most 
numerous  in  the  South.     The  Sauras,  or  wor- 


VISHNU'S    "AVATARAS"  ^^ 

shippers  of  Stirya,  still  remain  as  a  distinct  sect, 
but  it  is  not  a  numerous  one.  The  images  of 
Stirya  are  often  identical  with  those  of  Vishnu. 

Vishnu  to  the  Vaishnavaites  is  Brahma,  Vishnu, 
and  Siva.  In  the  same  way  Siva,  to  the  Saivaites, 
represents  the  whole  Trimtirti.  This  interchange 
of  symbols  between  different  sects  often  makes 
Indian  religious  ideas  seem  tangled  and  confused 
to  Europeans.  It  should  always  be  remembered, 
not  only  that  any  one  of  the  Trimtirti  may  stand 
for  all  three,  but  that  any  Hindu  deity  may  be 
regarded  as  a  symbol  or  manifestation  of  all  the 
powers  of  the  One  God. 

Vishnu  in  his  universal  character  has  ten 
avataras,  incarnations,  or  "descents,"  in  which 
he  manifested  himself  to  the  world.  In  the  first, 
the  Matsya,  or  fish-incarnation,  he  is  said  to  have 
saved  Manu,  one  of  the  progenitors  of  the  human 
race,  from  a  great  flood.  In  the  second,  the 
Kurma,  or  tortoise-incarnation,  he  assisted  in  the 
churning  of  the  ocean.  The  next  was  the  Varaha, 
or  boar-incarnation,  in  which  Vishnu  raised  the 
earth  from  beneath  the  waters  of  chaos,  or,  accord- 
ing to  a  Puranic  legend,  rescued  it  from  a  demon 
who  had  dragged  it  beneath  the  sea.  The  Nara- 
sinha,orman-lionincarnation,wastheform  in  which 
he  is  said  to  have  appeared  to  destroy  the  wicked 
king  Hiranya-ka^ipu.  This  is  the  subject  of  one 
of  the  most  dramatic  of  the  Ellora  sculptures.^ 
The  fifth  incarnation,  known  as  the  Vamana,  or 

1  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XXII. 


78  VISHNU'S   "AVATARAS" 

dwarf,  refers  to  the  "  three  strides  of  Vishnu,"  or 
the  three  positions  of  the  sun  at  rising,  at  noon, 
and  at  setting.  In  the  Puranas  he  is  said  to 
have  assumed  the  form  of  a  dwarf  to  recover*  the 
dominion  of  the  earth  from  a  demon-king,  Bali. 

The  four  historical  or  quasi-historical  avataras 
are  those  of  Parasu-Rama,  or  Rama  with  the  axe — 
a  Brahmin  who  overthrew  the  Kshatriyas  and 
established  Brahmin  supremacy  in  Northern  India; 
Rama  Chandra,  the  hero  of  the  Ramayana ; 
Krishna,  the  hero  of  the  Mahabharata  and  the  in- 
spired teacher  of  the  Bhagavad-Gita;  and  Gautama 
Buddha,  the  founder  of  Buddhism. 

The  tenth  and  last  avatar  is  that  of  the  Hindu 

,  Messiah,  Kalkin,  who  at  the  end  of  the  present 

dark  age,  the  Kali  Yuga,  is  to  appear  riding  a 

white  horse,  with  a  flaming  sword   in  hand,  to 

restore  righteousness  and  to  rule  the  earth. 

The  passage  from  the  Bhagavad-Gita  quoted 
above^  is  one  of  the  grandest  descriptions  in  Hindu 
literature  of  Vishnu's  universal  form  and  attributes. 
In  sculpture  this  conception  of  Vishnu  is  very 
finely  rendered  in  the  Mamallapuram  relief,  Plate 
XX.  In  popular  Hindu  art  of  the  present  day, 
especially  in  Northern  India,  the  favourite  subjects 
are  the  allegorical  legends  relating  to  Vishnu's  in- 
carnation as  Krishna,  his  exploits  as  the  destroyer 
of  demons  and  wicked  men,  his  sports  with  the 
gopis,  and  the  beautiful  episode  of  Radha's  de- 
votion. 

*  Page  56, 


PLATE   VII 


SIVA   AS    NATARAJA  :     FRONT   VIEW 


y 


SIVA'S    DANCE  79 

Siva,  as  the  supreme  deity  of  the  Saivaites,  is 
generally  known  as  Mahadeva,  the  Great  God. 
In  sculpture  he  appears  sometimes  as  the  Great 
Yogi,  wrapt  in  meditation  like  the  Buddha ;  some- 
times in  his  terrific  aspect  as  Bhairava.  One  of 
the  most  inspired  conceptions  of  Hindu  art  is 
that  of  Siva  as  the  Universal  Lord,  or  the  Soul  of 
the  Universe  manifesting  itself  in  matter,  in  his 
mystic  dance  of  creation,  symbolising  the  perfect 
joy  which  God  feels  in  the  creation  which  He 
makes,  controls,  destroys,  and  renews  at  will.  The 
Puranas  record  various  legends  which  develop 
allegorically  this  fundamental  concept  of  the  cos- 
mic rhythm.  Siva,  it  is  said,  to  please  his  consort 
Parvati,  performed  this  dance,  called  the  Tandavan, 
in  the  presence  of  all  the  devas,  to  the  accom- 
panimentof  the  celestial  drum,  which,  like  Vishnu's 
conch-shell  trumpet,  is  the  symbol  of  vibration,  the 
creative  force.  This  is  the  subject  of  the  magnifi- 
cent fragment  from  Elephanta,  illustrated  in  Plate 
XXVHI.,  and  of  the  Ellora  sculpture,  PlateXXIX. 

He  is  said  to  have  also  performed  this  dance 
on  the  prostrate  body  of  the  demon-dwarf  Tripura, 
representing  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  who 
was  sent  by  some  envious  sages  to  attack  him. 
This  is  the  usual  form  in  which  Siva  is  represented 
in  South  Indian  bronzes,  of  which  the  Madras 
Museum  has  two  superb  examples.  One  of  them 
has  been  illustrated  in  my  "  Indian  Sculpture  and 
Painting,"  Plate  XXV. ;  the  other  is  shown  here  in 
Plates  VII.  and  VIII.     In  composition  these  two 


8o  SIVA'S    DANCE 

bronzes  are  almost  identical,  but  in  the  latter 
the  aura  of  flame  surrounding  the  figure,  and  the 
waving  locks  of  matted  hair,  symbolising  the 
sacred  rivers  which  flowed  over  Mahadeva's  head, 
are  broken  away.  There  is,  however,  a  great 
difference  in  the  feeling  which  animates  the  two. 

In  both  of  them  Siva  has  four  arms,  instead 
of  eight,  as  in  the  Elephantaand  Ellora  sculptures. 
In  the  uppermost  right  hand  is  held  a  small  hour- 
glass-shaped drum,  the  symbol  of  vibration,  or  the 
life-principle.  The  corresponding  left  hand  holds 
the  sacred  purifying  fire,  symbol  both  of  the  de- 
struction of  the  body  and  of  the  heavenly  grace 
which  the  soul  may  gain  thereby.  In  the  lobe 
of  the  right  ear  there  is  a  woman's  ornament,  in 
the  left  a  man's  earring :  by  which  is  expressed 
the  nature  of  the  Deity,  combining  both  the  male 
and  female  principle. 

There  is  a  great  contrast  between  the  elegant 
grace  of  this  most  delightful  bronze  and  the 
vehement,  overpowering  energy  of  the  Elephanta 
and  Ellora  bas-reliefs.  There  is  less  of  the  divine 
and  more  of  mundane  feeling  in  its  youthful, 
almost  feminine  lightness  and  gaiety.  We  feel  that 
the  sculptor  was  chiefly  absorbed  in  the  effort  to 
express  the  abandon  of  youth  yielding  itself  wholly 
to  the  rhythm  and  ecstasy  of  the  dance.  In  this 
joyous,  spontaneous  mood,  it  is  much  more  akin 
to  Greek  art  than  the  trivial,  decadent  sculpture 
of  Gandhara,  to  which  many  critics  would  attri- 
bute  the   source   of    Indian   artistic   inspiration. 


PLATE   VIII 


SIVA    AS    NATARAJA  :     BACK    VIKW 


KARTTIKEYA  8i 

And  certainly  a  Pompeian  or  Tanagran  sculptor, 
or  their  disciples  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  would 
be  more  proud  to  acknowledge  a  kindred  feeling 
in  the  perfect  art  of  this  South  Indian  image- 
maker  than  to  claim  relationship  with  the  mostly- 
insipid  and  mechanical  work  of  Kanishka's  hire- 
ling stone-masons. 

It  is  difficult  at  present  to  date  these  bronzes 
with  any  degree  of  certainty.  They  are  un- 
doubtedly much  later  than  the  Mamallapuram 
sculptures,  and  later  than  those  of  Ellora ;  but 
they  are  considerably  earlier  than  the  great  temple 
of  Madura,  the  sculptures  of  which  in  many  cases 
betray  strong  Western  influence.  Taranatha,  in 
his  brief  sketch  of  Indian  art-history,  written  about 
A.D.  1608,^  mentions  three  skilful  South  Indian 
image-makers :  Jaya,  Parojaya,  and  Vijaya. 
Possibly  the  Madras  Museum  bronzes  may  be  the 
work  of  one  of  these  artists. 

The  symbolism  conveyed  in  one  of  the  chief 
agents  of  Siva's  destructive  power,  his  son, 
Karttikeya,  the  god  of  war,  needs  no  explanation. 
He  has  for  his  vdhan  the  peacock,  an  appropriate 
emblem  for  the  pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of 
war.  The  superbly  decorative  composition  show- 
ing Karttikeya  in  his  war-chariot,  flying  like  a 
whirlwind  to  battle,  given  in  Plate  IX.,  is  a 
portion  of  one  of  the  Kambodian  reliefs  from 
a  cast  in  the  Trocaddro,  Paris. 

The   other    progeny    of    Siva   is    the   dwarf, 

*  See  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  pp.  76-81. 
6 


82  GANESHA 

grotesque Ganesha,  who  is  the  god  of  intellectuality, 
of  worldly  wisdom,  Lord  of  the  lesser  divinities, 
protector  of  households,  and  patron  of  authors. 
The  Puranas  record  his  birth  on  this  wise.  Parvati, 
the  wife  of  Siva,  was  having  her  bath  in  her  lord's 
absence,  and  for  the  sake  of  privacy  fashioned 
Ganesha  from  the  turmeric  paste  with  which  she 
had  anointed  her  body,  and  set  him  down  at  the 
door  to  keep  off  intruders.  Siva,  unexpectedly 
returning,  found  his  entrance  barred  by  the  un- 
known doorkeeper,  and  in  a  rage  cut  off  his  head. 
Parvati  was  irate  at  his  rashness,  and  would  not 
be  pacified  until  Siva  had  promised  to  restore 
Ganesha  to  life.  The  latter  s  head  could  not  be 
found,  so  Siva  went  off  into  the  forest  and  found 
an  elephant  sleeping  with  his  head  turned  towards 
the  north — the  direction  of  his  Himalayan  paradise. 
He  thought  this  would  serve  for  the  head  of  his 
supposititious  son,  so  he  severed  it  and  fitted  it 
on  to  the  body  of  Ganesha :  thus  fulfilling  his 
promise,  though  in  a  rather  unexpected  and  in- 
congruous fashion. 

The  meaning  of  the  allegory  is  clear.  Ganesha, 
who  is  the  protector  of  households,  represents  the 
wisdom  which  brings  to  mankind  a  great  store 
of  this  world's  goods  ;  the  sagacity  of  an  elephant 
which  keeps  the  mind  tied  to  earth,  not  the  spiritual 
power  of  Siva,  which  can  take  wings  and  lift  the 
soul  to  heaven  :  wherefore  he  is  the  patron  deity 
of  scribes  and  publishers.  He  was  not  born  of 
the  perfect  union  of  the  Soul  and  Matter,  Purusha 


PLATE   IX 


KARTTIKEYA 


SIVA   AND    DAKSHA  83 

and  Prakriti,  but  was  fashioned  from  the  dross 
of  Mother  Earth,  and  his  vehicle  is  the  mean, 
earth-burrowing  creature,  the  rat.  Nevertheless, 
he  is  a  jovial,  well-disposed  deity,  and  always 
immensely  popular;  and,  as  the  intuitive  intellectual 
power  must  always  be  joined  with  reason,  so,  by 
permission  of  the  gods,  Ganesha's  name  is  always 
to  be  invoked  first  in  sacrifices. 

The  same  device  of  gentle  ridicule  for  convey- 
ing a  moral  lesson  is  used  in  the  story  of  Daksha, 
as  told  in  the  Puranas.  In  this  case  the  moral 
conveyed  is  the  inefficacy  of  sacrifices  when 
directed  towards  selfish  or  unworthy  objects.  The 
explanation  usually  given  that  the  story  refers  to 
sectarian  disputes  between  the  followers  of  Vishnu 
and  Siva  seems  to  me  to  miss  the  whole  point 
of  it. 

Daksha  is  the  personification  of  intellectual 
pride :  his  name  signifies  "  ability,"  and  he  was 
said  to  be  one  of  the  progenitors  of  the  human 
race.  He  had  twenty-four  fair  daughters,  who 
are  personifications  of  respectability  and  all  the 
domestic  virtues.  Among  them,  however,  Sati, 
or  Truth — the  essence  of  spirituality — was  passion- 
ately devoted  to  Siva,  and,  though  he  appeared  as 
a  ragged  ascetic,  besmeared  in  ashes  and  with 
matted  hair,  she  chose  him  as  her  husband  in 
preference  to  many  other  powerful  and  wealthy 
suitors. 

This  incensed  her  father,  who  was  worldly- 
wise  and  would  only  pay  respect  to  the  Preserver, 


84  SIVA   AND    DAKSHA 

Vishnu,  the  bestower  of  wealth,  happiness,  and 
prosperity.  Daksha  had  arranged  for  a  grand 
horse-sacrifice,  to  which  all  the  devas,  except  Siva, 
were  invited.  Sati,  though  uninvited,  attended  the 
feast,  but,  unable  to  bear  the  insults  which  Daksha 
flung  at  Siva  and  herself,  she  fell  dead  at  her 
father's  feet. 

Siva,  then,  assuming  one  of  his  terrific  forms 
as  the  Destroyer,  summoned  all  his  hosts,  and  in 
a  furious  combat  defeated  and  slew  Daksha,  though 
the  latter  was  assisted  by  other  devas,  and  carried 
off  the  body  of  Sati.  The  whole  world  was 
convulsed  with  the  great  god's  grief  and  was 
threatened  with  dissolution,  until  Vishnu,  with  his 
discus,  cut  the  body  of  Sati  into  pieces,  which  fell 
upon  the  earth.  Siva,  relieved  of  his  burden, 
returned  to  meditation  in  his  Himalayan  paradise. 

Sati  was  subsequently  reborn  and  again  be- 
came Siva's  bride  as  Uma,  or  Parvati,  the  fair 
daughter  of  Himalaya.  At  the  intercession  of 
Sati's  mother  Daksha  was  restored  to  life ;  but,  as 
his  head  could  not  be  found,  it  was  replaced  by  that 
of  a  goat.  The  animal  chosen,  as  in  the  case  of 
Ganesha,  points  the  moral  of  the  story — the  goat 
is  the  animal  most  frequently  offered  in  Hindu 
sacrifices. 

Like  the  fine  sculpture  of  the  same  deity  now 
in  the  Ethnographic  Museum  at  Leyden,nhe monu- 
mental image  of  Ganesha  shown  in  Plate  X.  comes 
from  Java.     Ganesha  is  generally  treated  as  the 

1  See  "Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XXVII. 


»•  »»• 


PLATE    X 


GANESHA   IN    SCULPTURE  85 

Indian  counterpart  of  the  Falstaff  among  Chinese 
household  gods,  the  round-bellied  god  of  good 
luck.  It  would  hardly  occur  to  the  Western 
mind  that  such  uncompromising  artistic  materials 
as  those  provided  by  the  Puranic  myth — a  decapi- 
tated infant's  body  furnished  anew  with  the  head 
of  an  elephant — could  be  treated  otherwise  than  as 
a  subject  pour  rire,  a  grotesque,  belonging  to  the 
category  of  the  decorative  rather  than  the  "fine'" 
arts,  according  to  our  arbitrary  and  misleading 
modern  classification. 

But  Indian  genius  has  here  risen  above  pedantic 
prescription  and  given  us  a  really  noble  conception 
of  Ganesha  in  a  serious  mood,  as  a  personification 
of  man's  animal  nature,  imbued  with  something  of 
the  mystery  of  the  Sphinx  and  a  certain  super- 
natural solemnity,  carried  out  with  magnificent 
strength  and  breadth  of  modelling.  Ganesha  is  a 
symbol  of  social  order  and  stability:  an  apotheosis 
of  all  the  qualities  which  man  shares  with  the  ani- 
mal creation.  Siva  is  the  symbol  of  the  soul — 
Atman;  Ganesha,  his  son,  stands  for  Manas,  the 
mind. 

The  metaphysical  ideas  represented  by  Hindu 
images  are  often  symbolised  more  abstractly  by 
geometric  signs  ;  for  the  philosophic  Hindu  is  often 
as  averse  to  the  naturalistic  forms  of  symbolism 
as  the  most  furious  iconoclast  of  Christianity  or 
of  Islam.  The  laws  of  Manu  associate  the  Brah- 
mins who  havecharge  of  temple  images  with  thieves 
and  all  sorts  of  disreputable  persons ;  and  even  at 


86  GEOMETRIC   SYMBOLISM 

the  present  day  they  are, as  a  class,  held  in  the  great- 
est contempt  by  the  learned /^//^//.  Itwas  probably 
Graeco-Roman  influence,  acting  upon  Buddhism, 
which  enlarged  enormously  the  Hindu,  pantheon 
and  reconciled  orthodox  Hindu  thought  to  the 
worship  of  images  as  a  spiritual  aid,  more  especially 
for  those  who  were  intellectually  deficient  or  too 
uncultured  to  understand  the  metaphysics  of 
esoteric  Hinduism. 

In  this  geometric  symbolism  God,  the  Absolute 
or  Unknowable,  is  represented  by  a  point,  or  dot 
(parm),  which  is  one  of  the  Hindu  sectarial  marks. 
The  symbol  of  God  manifested  in  the  cosmos  is 
an  equilateral  triangle,  the  three  sides  of  which 
may  be  taken  to  represent  the  Trimtirti.  When 
the  triangle  stands  on  its  apexit  signifiesexpansion, 
or  evolution,  and,  like  the  swastika,  the  ascending 
creative  force — or  life.  It  is  also  the  symbol  of 
water  as  the  creative  element,  and  is  adopted  by 
Vaishnavaites  as  the  symbol  of  Narayana- 
Vishnu.  The  triangle  reversed,  or  standing  on 
its  base,  signifies  involution,  or  contraction,  and 
hence  fire,  as  the  destructive  element.  It  is  one 
of  the  symbols  of  Siva. 

The  two  triangles  intersecting  form  the  mystic 
lotus,  known  as  King  Solomon's  Seal,  the  seat  of 
Brahma,  the  casket  which  contained  the  Jewel  of 
Life.  1 1  was  also  the  symbol  of  the  cosmic  element, 
ether. 

The  spiral  was  another  geometric  symbol  of 
evolutionary  force,  represented  in  nature  by  the 


GEOMETRIC   SYMBOLISM  87 

whirling  of  dust-storms  and  waterspouts,  the  eddy- 
ing of  whirlpools,  or  the  wreaths  of  evaporation  in 
water,  the  curling  of  smoke,  and  in  Hindu  allegory 
by  the  Churning  of  the  Cosmic  Ocean.  It  is 
represented  in  Hindu  art  by  the  coiled,  or  gliding 
snake,  the  antelope's  and  ram's  horn,  the  conch- 
shell  of  Vishnu  and  the  sri-vatsa  curl  on  his  breast, 
the  salagram  stone,  Narayana's  navel,  and  the 
winding  stalk  of  the  lotus. 

The  mystic  syllable  aum  was  also  repre- 
sented by  a  spiral  symbol  which  is  sculptured  on 
one  of  the  Elephanta  reliefs.^ 

The  spiral,  together  with  the  swastika  and 
sauwastika,  and  the  parallel  symbols  of  the 
equilateral  triangles,  and  the  three  steps  of  Vishnu, 
provide  the  basis  of  innumerable  intersecting 
patterns  in  Asiatic  decorative  art ;  but  this  is  a 
subject  beyond  the  scope  of  my  present  inquiry. 

Another  aniconic  symbol,  Siva's  lingam,  which 
in  Northern  India  has  almost  universally  taken 
the  place  of  quasi-anthropomorphic  symbols,  was 
in  all  probability  originally  derived  from  the  votive 
stupa  of  Buddhism.  In  Saivaite  symbolism  it 
represents  the  same  ideas  as  those  which  are 
associated  with  the  cosmic  Tree,  or  Pillar,  and  the 
churning-stick  of  Vishnu,  i.e.  it  stands  for  the 
pivot  or  the  axis  of  cosmic  forces,  like  the  "  poles  " 
of  the  earth  ;  or  for  the  pillar  of  the  cosmic  ascent, 
at  the  foot  of  which  is  the  joy  of  creation,  at  the 

^  See  also  Alberuni's  "India,"  vol.  i.  p.  173.     Triibner's  Oriental 
Series. 


88  SEX   SYMBOLISM 

summit  the  bliss  of  Nirvana.  According  to  a 
Saivaite  myth  both  Brahma  and  Vishnu  failed  in 
their  attempt  to  measure  it :  for  who  but  Mahadeva 
Himself  could  reach  to  the  height  of  the  heavens 
or  fathom  the  depths  of  hell  ?  Though  phallic 
associations  are  undoubtedly  connected  with  it 
popularly,  to  the  cultured  Hindu  it  is  only  sugges- 
tive of  the  philosophic  concept  that  God  is  a  point, 
formless,  or  that  He  is  the  One. 

The  ideas  connected  with  sex  symbolism  in 
Hindu  art  and  ritual  are  generally  misinterpreted 
by  those  who  take  them  out  of  the  environment 
of  Indian  social  life.  In  the  Upanishads  sexual 
relationship  is  described  as  one  of  the  means  of 
apprehending  the  divine  nature,  and  throughout 
oriental  literature  it  is  constantly  used  metaphori- 
cally to  express  the  true  relationship  between  the 
human  soul  and  God. 

The  words  of  Sir  M.  Monier-Williams  are  very 
applicable  to  the  whole  question  of  sex  symbolism 
in  Indian  religious  art :  "  In  India  the  relation 
between  the  sexes  is  regarded  as  a  sacred  mystery, 
and  is  never  held  to  be  suggestive  of  improper  or 
indecent  ideas." 

H.  H.  Wilson  also  says  :  "  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  origin  of  this  form  of  worship  in  India, 
the  notions  upon  which  it  was  founded,  according 
to  the  impure  fancies  of  European  writers,  are 
not  to  be  traced  in  even  the  Saiva  Puranas."^ 

^  "  Vishnu  Purana,"  Preface,  p.  xliv. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FEMININE   IDEAL 

Having  seen  how  the  male  human  figure  in  Indian 

art  is  used  to  symbolise  the  nature  of  Divinity, 

we  will  pass  on  to  consider  the  feminine  ideal. 

Purusha  and  Prakriti,  Soul  and  Matter,  are  held 

to  be  inert  in  themselves,  so  each  of  the  Trimtlrti 

has  its  sakti  or  saktis,  divine  powers  representing 

the  female  principle,  which  enable  them  to  perform 

their  functions  in   the   universe.     Expressed   in 

concrete  forms,  the  female  counterpart,  or  wife, 

of  Brahma,  the  Creator,  is  the  goddess  Saraswati, 

who  symbolises  learning  and  wisdom,  and  is  the 

patroness  of  the  fine  arts.     Similarly,  the  sakti  of 

Vishnu  the  Preserver,  is  Lakshmi,  or  Sri,  who 

symbolises   earthly  prosperity,  or  good  fortune. 

The  saktis  of  Siva,  as  the  Destroyer,  are  Durgi, 

Gauri,  and  other  fighting  goddesses,  destroyers 

of  demons,  to  propitiate  whom  bloody  sacrifices, 

and  sometimes  human  victims,  are  offered  ;  but  in 

his  benign   aspect   the   sakti  of  Siva   is    Uma, 

or  Parvati,  daughter  of  Himalaya,   symbolising 

spirituality  and  purity  (Plate  XI.  and  frontispiece). 

89 


90  KAlI 

In  Kali,  the  Ender  of  Time  and  Giver  of 
Nirvana,  the  female  principle  is  worshipped  as 
the  Mother  of  all  the  Gods.  As  the  sakti  of  Siva 
in  his  aspect  as  Maha-kal,  Time,  it  is  Kali  who, 
at  the  end  of  a  cosmic  cycle,  destroys  even  her 
own  husband  and  dissolves  all  the  worlds,  reduc- 
ing nature  and  all  the  devas  to  their  formless, 
unconditioned  state,  when  Narayana  reposes  again 
on  the  primordial  waters.  The  "Nirvana Tantram" 
says :  **  As  the  lightning  is  born  from  the  cloud 
and  disappears  within  the  cloud,  so  Brahma  and 
all  other  gods  take  birth  from  Kali  and  will  dis- 
appear in  Kali."  Her  images  are  always  black 
because  **  as  all  colours,  white,  yellow,  and  others, 
are  absorbed  in  black,  so  all  the  elements  are  in 
the  end  absorbed  in  Kali ;  and  as  the  absence  of 
all  colours  is  black,  so  Kali  is  represented  black 
in  order  to  teach  the  worshipper  that  the  goddess 
is  without  substance  and  without  gunas!' 

This  conception  of  Kali  does  not,  however, 
appear  to  have  been  prominent  in  the  great  period 
of  Indian  sculpture,  when  Parvati  appears  most 
frequently  as  Siva's  consort,  and  the  modern 
artistic  representations  of  her  are  generally  of  the 
most  puerile  description. 

Though  intermediate  between  soul  and  matter, 
and  except  in  the  case  of  Kali  rarely  considered 
as  having  an  entity  apart  from  the  male,  the 
female  principle  is  nevertheless  regarded  as  the 
most  potent  force  in  creation,  being  representative 
of  the  Energy,  Power,  or  Virtue  which  manifests 


PLATE  XI 


PARVATI 


SAKTI  91 

itself  throughout  the  universe  in  qualities  both 
benign  and  malignant,  various,  elusive,  and  contrary 
as  the  elements  of  woman's  nature,  which  an 
Indian  legend  of  the  creation,  gracefully  para- 
phrased by  Mr.  Bain,  summarises  thus  : 

In  the  beginning,  when  Twashtri  [the  Divine 
Artificer]  came  to  the  creation  of  woman  he  found 
that  he  had  exhausted  his  materials  in  the  making 
of  man  and  that  no  solid  elements  were  left.  In 
this  dilemma,  after  profound  meditation,  he  did  as 
follows.  He  took  the  rotundity  of  the  moon  and 
the  curves  of  creepers,  and  the  clinging  of  tendrils, 
and  the  trembling  of  grass,  and  the  slenderness 
of  the  reed,  and  the  bloom  of  flowers,  and  the 
lightness  of  leaves,  and  the  tapering  of  the 
elephant's  trunk,  and  the  glances  of  deer,  and 
the  clustering  of  rows  of  bees,  and  the  joyous 
gaiety  of  sunbeams,  and  the  weeping  of  clouds, 
and  the  fickleness  of  the  winds,  and  the  timidity 
of  the  hare,  and  the  vanity  of  the  peacock,  and  the 
softness  of  the  parrot's  bosom,  and  the  hardness 
of  adamant,  and  the  sweetness  of  honey,  and  the 
cruelty  of  the  tiger,  and  the  warm  glow  of  fire, 
and  the  coldness  of  snow,  and  the  chattering  of 
jays,  and  the  cooing  of  the  kokila,  and  the 
hypocrisy  of  the  crane,  and  the  fidelity  of  the 
chakra'waka\2i.vA,  compounding  all  these  together, 
he  made  woman  and  gave  her  to  man."  ^ 

In  early  Indian  sculpture  and  painting,  before 
the  metaphysical  idea  of  sakti  began  to  be  repre- 
sented in  female  form,  there  is  no  super-woman. 

'  "  A  Digit  of  the  Moon,"  pp.  13,  14. 


92  THE    INDIAN    WOMAN 

At  Bharhut  and  Sanchi  both  men  and  women  are 
represented  in  a  purely  naturalistic  manner ;  and 
at  Amaravati,  where  aristocratic  or  divine  birth  in 
the  male  sex  is  symbolised  by  the  superhuman 
body,  the  female  form  still  continues  to  be  treated 
entirely  naturalistically. 

The  ideal  of  the  independent  sportswoman,  as 
the  virgin  goddess  Diana,  patroness  of  the  chase, 
has  no  counterpart  in  Indian  art;  though  as  the 
slayer  of  demons,  Durga,and  as  Kali,  the  Destroyer, 
the  feminine  principle  in  Hindu  theogony  is  given 
its  ferocious  aspect.  Hunting  has  always  been  a 
royal  sport  in  India,  as  in  all  other  countries,  but 
it  has  never  been  glorified  into  a  national  cult,  and 
the  sacredness  and  unity  of  all  life  were  principles 
recognised  by  every  Indian  school  of  religious 
teaching,  even  by  those  which  did  not  distinctly 
forbid  the  killing  of  animals  for  food.  Until  the 
Muhammadan  conquest,  hunting  was  never  such 
a  favourite  theme  with  Indian  artists  as  it  was  in 
Assyria  and  ancient  Iran  ;  animals  are  either  the 
object  of  worship  themselves  or  they  join  with 
men,  as  their  fellow-creatures,  in  worshipping  at 
the  sacred  shrine  the  Source  of  all  life. 

When  the  Indian  woman,  from  whatever  im- 
pulse it  might  be,  sought  emancipation  from  social 
or  domestic  conventions  and  restraints,  it  was  to 
claim  equality  with  men  in  the  spiritual,  not  the 
worldly  life.  What  Mrs.  Rhys  Davids  says  of 
the  early  Buddhist  sisterhood  is  true  of  Indian 
womanhood  in  general : 


THE    INDIAN   WOMAN  93 

"To  gain  this  free  mohWity,  pace  the  deeper 
liberty,  they,  like  their  later  Christian  sisters,  had 
laid  down  all  social  position,  all  domestic  success; 
they  had  lost  their  world.  But  in  exchange  they 
had  won  the  status  of  an  individual  in  place  of 
being  adjuncts,  however  much  admired,  fostered, 
and  sheltered  they  might,  as  such,  have  been. 
*  With  shaven  head,  wrapt  in  their  robe ' — a  dress 
indistinguishable,  it  would  seem,  from  the  swathing 
toga  and  swathed  undergarments  of  the  male 
religieux — the  Sisters  were  free  to  come  and  go,  to 
dive  alone  into  the  depths  of  the  wood,  or  climb 
aloft."  1 

And  Mrs.  Rhys  Davids's  comment  that,  "  in 
Buddhist  hagiology  there  is  no  premium  placed 
on  the  state  of  virginity  as  such,"^  may  be  taken 
as  having  general  application  to  Indian  women 
also.  The  ideal  of  feminine  purity  and  all  the 
consecrations  of  womanhood  in  Indian  thought 
are  centred  first  in  the  chaste  wife  and  mother, 
and  next  in  the  religieuse,  whether  she  be  virgin 
or  widow.  Virginity,  in  itself,  is  only  a  calamity 
which  needs  the  solace  and  protection  of  religion. 
Another  of  the  Indian  legends  of  Creation  para- 
phrased by  Mr.  Bain  says  that  woman  was  made 
out  of  the  reflections  of  man,  when  the  latter  sought 
companionship  by  looking  at  himself  in  pools  of 
water.  "  The  woman,  as  soon  as  she  was  made, 
began  to  cry,  and  she  said,  '  Alas  1  alas !  I  am, 
and  I  not.'     Then  said  the  Creator:  'Thou  foolish 

^  "  Psalms  of  the  Sisters,"  Introduction,  p.  xxv  (Henry  Frowde). 
*  Ibid.  p.  xxxiii. 


94  FEMININE    BEAUTY 

intermediate  creature,  thou  art  a  nonentity  only 
when  thou  standest  alone.  But  when  thou  art 
united  to  man  thou  art  real  in  participation  with 
his  substance.'  And  thus,  apart  from  her  husband 
a  woman  is  a  nonentity,  and  a  shadow  without  a 
substance ;  being  nothing  but  the  image  of  himself 
reflected  in  the  mirror  of  illusion."  ^ 

The  type  of  female  beauty  most  common  in 
Indian  art  is,  therefore,  that  of  the  young  matron 
with  breasts  "  like  a  pair  of  golden  gourds  "  and 
*•  hips  like  the  swell  of  a  river-bank."  Not  that 
Indian  artists  were  indifferent  to  the  charm  of  less 
mature  womanhood,  but  social  custom  imposed  a 
stigma  upon  the  unmarried  state,  and  physical 
beauty  by  itself  is  not  the  ideal  of  Indian  art. 
Greek  artists  were  satisfied  that  perfect  human 
beauty,  in  both  sexes,  was  in  itself  the  type  of 
divine  beauty  and  all-sufficient  for  man's  conception 
of  divinity ;  but  in  Indian  thought  divine  beauty 
transcends  all  the  ideals  of  human  perfection. 

Indian  poets,  like  all  others,  extol  the  beauty 
of  the  female  form,  but  these  physical  charms  are 
snares  which  disturb  holy  men  in  their  devotions, 
spoil  their  sacrifices,  and  keep  their  thoughts  tied 
to  this  earth.  There  is  a  fatal  fascination  in  the 
beauty  of  the  voluptuous  apsarasas,  the  courtesans 
of  the  gods — 

With  all  the  gifts  of  grace  and  youth  and  beauty, 

yet  thus  fair, 
Nor  god  nor  demon  sought  their  wedded  love — 

1  "  In  the  Great  God's  Hair,"  p.  35. 


PLATE   XII 


A   YOUNG   WOMAN    PRESSING   THE   ASOKA-TKEE   WITH    HER   FOOT 


THE    DIVINE    IDEAL    IN    WOMAN       95 

and  they  are  often  represented  in  Indian  sculpture. 
A  good  example  is  shown  in  Plate  XII.,  a  bas- 
relief  from  an  Orissan  temple,  probably  of  the 
thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century,  in  which  the 
swelling  bosom,  rounded  hips,  and  the  clinging, 
serpentine  grace  of  the  limbs,  typical  of  the  Indian 
feminine  ideal,  are  admirably  rendered. 

But  such  types,  familiar  as  they  are  in  Indian 
art,  do  not  express  the  highest  Indian  ideal.  Even 
Uma,  the  lovely  daughter  of  Himalaya,  could  not 
win  Siva  for  her  husband  until  Kama,  the  god  of 
love,  had  been  burnt  to  ashes  in  the  fire  of  the 
Great  God's  eyes,  and  she  had  proved  her  devotion 
by  long  and  trying  penances.  The  cult  of  the 
nude  female,  on  which  all  modern  academic  art 
in  Europe  is  based,  can  therefore  bring  no  in- 
spiration to  India. 

It  is  upon  spiritual  beauty  that  the  Indian 
artist  is  always  insisting.  Purusha,  spirit,  is  the 
male  principle,  and  the  highest  type  of  divine 
beauty  is  symbolised  by  the  male  figure,  the  beauty 
of  the  female  divinity  being  considered  as  the 
reflection,  or  counterpart  of  the  male  form.  It 
would  be  more  exact  to  say  that,  in  the  images  of 
Buddha  and  the  Jain  Tirthankaras,  Indian  artists 
were  aiming  at  a  divine  type  which  combined  all 
the  physical  perfections  of  male  and  female,  and 
transcended  them  both.  The  broad  shoulders 
and  lion-like  body  were  derived  from  masculine 
characteristics,  and  the  rounded  limbs,  smooth 
skin   without   veins,    the  joints  with   the  bones 


96       THE    DIVINE    IDEAL    IN    WOMAN 

hardly  showing,  represented  those  of  the  other  sex. 
Afterwards,  when  Mahayana  Buddhism  provided 
Buddha  with  a  female  counterpart,  Indian  artists 
made  the  new  type  of  divinity  conform  to  the 
original  divine  ideal,  only  adding  the  most  promi- 
nent sexual  characteristics  todistinguish  itfrom  the 
other.  Thus  was  created  the  ideal  super-woman, 
of  which  the  beautiful  figure  of  Prajnaparamita^ 
from  Java  is  a  type.  The  sexual  characteristics 
became  more  prominent  in  Hindu  female  divinities, 
such  as  Parvati  and  Lakshmi,  and  in  their  Buddh- 
ist counterparts,  the  different  manifestations  of 
lara. 

Both  of  the  illustrations  given  in  Plate  XL  and 
in  the  frontispiece  show  the  feminine  divine  ideal 
in  the  person  of  Parvati,  the  Earth  Mother.  The 
former,  from  a  South  Indian  bronze  figure  of 
uncertain  date,  now  in  the  National  Museum  at 
Copenhagen,  represents  her  crowned  as  the  con- 
sort of  Siva ;  the  latter  is  related  to  the  myth  of 
Uma  s  betrothal  to  Siva,  as  told  in  the  poem  of 
Kalidisa,  the  "  Kumara-sambhava."  It  belongs  to 
the  style  of  temple-sculpture  known  as  Chalukyan, 
from  the  dynasties  of  that  name  which  ruled  over 
the  provinces  now  known  as  Hyderabad,  Mysore, 
and  Dharwar.  The  style  reached  its  greatest  per- 
fection in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  to 
which  epoch  this  sculpture  belongs  :  it  is  related 
to  the  early  Dravidian  style  of  Mamallapuram  in 
much  the  same  way  as  late  Decorated  Gothic  is 

^  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XIV. 


CHALUKYAN    SCULPTURE  97 

related  to  Early  English.  The  finest  examples 
now  remaining  are  perhaps  the  great  temple  at 
Ittagi,  in  Hyderabad,  and  those  at  Lakkundi 
and  at  Kuruvatti,  near  Harpanahalli.^  The  more 
famous  Hoysaleshvara  temple  at  Halebid,  though 
cited  by  Fergusson  as  the  best  of  its  class,  is  as 
regards  sculpture  a  decadent  example,  exhibiting 
all  those  faults  of  over-elaboration  and  rococo 
extravagance  in  decoration  which  European 
critics  are  too  prone  to  associate  with  Indian  art 
generally. 

The  frontispiece  illustrates  oneof  thetwogroups 
of  figures  placed  in  front  and  at  the  side  of  the 
capital  of  a  pilaster  at  the  east  entrance  of  the 
temple  at  Kuruvatti.  It  is  no  less  remarkable  as 
a  technical  tour  de  force  than  for  its  artistic  beauty, 
though  the  purist  might  object  that  the  treatment 
of  the  material  is  more  suitable  for  metal  than  for 
stone.  The  principal  figure,  Parvati,  or  Uma,  the 
daughter  of  Himalaya,  is  dancing  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  pipe  played  with  intense  feeling 
by  the  boy  on  her  left.  It  is  not  that  tremendous 
dance  of  Siva,  the  Tandavan,  with  which  he  sets 
the  worlds  in  motion  and  hurls  them  to  destruction, 
but  the  gentle,  swaying  rhythm  of  the  nautch  which 
the  gopis  danced  with  Krishna  in  the  pastures 
of  Brindaban,  like  the  soft  airs  of  spring  which 
played  among  the  trees  of  Himalaya  when  Umi 

^  See  Fergusson's  "  History  of  Indian  Architecture,"  Revised  Edition, 
1810,  vol.  i.  book  iv.  chapter  i.  3   and   Rea's    "Chalukyan  Architec- 
ture." 
7 


98  UMA   OR    PARVATI 

came  with  the  god  of  love  to  lure  the  Great  Ascetic 
from  his  meditations  : 

Bright  flowers  of  spring,  in  every  lovely  hue, 
Around  the  lady's  form  rare  beauty  threw. 
Some  clasped  her  neck  like  strings  of  purest  pearls, 
Some  shot  their  glory  through  her  wavy  curls, 
Bending  her  graceful  head,  as  half  oppressed 
With  swelling  charms  even  too  richly  blest. 
Fancy  might  deem  that  beautiful  young  maiden 
Some  slender  tree  with  its  sweet  flowers  o'erladen,  ^ 

In  this  wonderfully  animated  and  festive  group, 
as  fine  in  human  sentiment  as  it  is  decorative  in 
beauty,  the  sculptor  has  entered  heart  and  soul 
into  the  spirit  of  Kalidasa's  verse.  Very  charming 
is  the  modest,  half-shy  expression  of  the  beautifully 
poised  oval  head ;  the  robust,  rich  modelling  of  the 
goddess's  body  gives  the  true  Indian  ideal  of  ripe 
young  womanhood,  the  full  bosom,  the  slender 
waist,  the  swelling  hips,  and  the  tapering  limbs. 
The  joyous  rhythm  of  the  dance  vibrates  through 
the  whole  group  like  the  breath  of  spring,  in  the 
magnificent  swing  of  Parvati's  body,  like  a  young 
forest-tree  swaying  in  the  wind,  in  the  varied 
curves  of  her  richly  wrought  ornaments,  in  the 
fluttering  tassels,  and  in  the  delightful  little  figures 
which  balance  the  composition  on  either  side. 

The  sculptor  has  enhanced  the  feeling  of  light- 
ness and  gaiety  by  converting  the  aureole,  the 
symbol  of  divinity  behind  the  goddess,  into  a  flow- 

1  "  The  Birth  of  the  War-god,"  by  Kalidasa.    Translated  by  R.  H.  W. 
Griffith. 


THE    MARKS   OF    BEAUTY  99 

ing  wreath,  or  scroll,  which  in  the  gracefulness  of 
its  design  and  perfect  execution  is  not  the  least 
beautiful  touch  in  this  remarkable  work,  though 
the  right  half  of  it  has  been  broken. 

Most  of  the  marks  of  female  beauty  enumerated 
by  Indian  poets,  such  as  the  navel  low  in  the  body, 
eyes  like  a  lotus-petal,  face  like  the  full  moon,  the 
lines  on  the  neck  resembling  those  on  the  conch- 
shell,  and  the  slender  waist,  were  equally  attributes 
of  male  beauty,  and  were  included  in  the  lakshanas 
or  beauty-marks,  prescribed  for  images  of  Buddha 
and  the  Jain  Tirthankaras.  Even  the  practice  of 
tight  lacing  would  seem  from  the  evidence  of  the 
Cretan  sculptures  to  have  been  originally  a  mas- 
culine and  not  feminine  vanity :  the  purpose  of  it 
being,  as  I  have  explained,  to  make  the  male  body 
conform  to  the  artistic  ideal  of  a  mighty  hunter. 

The  description  of  Draupadi's  charms  in  the 
Mahabharata  is  a  typical  poetic  description  of 
Indian  feminine  beauty.  When  she  came  in  dis- 
guise to  Sudeshna,  the  wife  of  king  Virata,  offering 
herself  as  a  servant,  the  Queen,  in  astonishment, 
enumerates  all  the  charms  of  her  person,  declaring 
that  so  much  beauty  was  quite  incompatible  with 
her  professed  occupation  : 

"You  might  indeed,"  said  the  Queen,  "be  the 
mistress  of  servants,  both  male  and  female.  Your 
heels  are  not  prominent,  and  your  thighs  touch 
each  other.  You  have  great  intelligence,  your 
navel  is  deep,  and  your  words  are  well-chosen. 
And  your  great-toes,  bosom  and  hips  and  dorsa, 


loo  THE    MARKS   OF    BEAUTY 

and  toe-nails  and  palms  of  your  hands  are  all  well 
developed.  And  the  palms  of  your  hands  and  the 
soles  of  your  feet  and  your  face  are  ruddy.  And 
your  speech  is  sweet,  even  as  the  voice  of  a  swan. 
And  your  hair  is  beautiful,  your  bosom  shapely, 
and  you  are  possessed  of  the  highest  grace  ;  and, 
like  a  Kashmerean  mare,  you  are  furnished  with 
every  auspicious  mark.  Your  eye-lashes  are 
beautifully  bent,  your  lip  is  like  the  ruddy  gourd. 
Your  waist  is  slender,  and  the  lines  of  your  neck 
are  like  those  upon  a  conch-shell.  And  your  veins 
are  scarcely  visible.  Indeed  your  countenance  is 
like  the  full  moon,  your  eyes  resemble  the  petals 
of  the  autumnal  lotus,  and  your  body  is  fragrant 
like  the  lotus  itself.  Surely  in  beauty  you  resemble 
Sri  herself,  whose  seat  is  the  autumnal  lotus.  Tell 
me,  beautiful  damsel,  who  thou  art !  Thou  canst 
never  be  a  maid-servant.  Art  thou  a  Yakshi,  a 
goddess,  a  Gandharvi,  or  an  Apsara  ?  Art  thou 
the  daughter  of  a  celestial,  or  art  thou  a  Nagini  ? 
Art  thou  the  guardian  goddess  of  some  city,  a 
Vidyadara,  or  Kinnari,or  art  thou  Rohini  herself?" 

A  pretty  animistic  conceit,  which  affords  a 
favourite  motif  for  Indian  poets,  dramatists,  and 
artists,  is  that  which  makes  the  asoka-tree  burst 
into  flower  when  touched  by  the  foot  of  a  beautiful 
woman. 

It  may  be,  as  Mr.  Abanindro  Nath  Tagore  has 
suggested,  an  allegory  of  thereawakening  of  nature 
on  the  approach  of  spring ;  like  the  story  of  the 
marriage  of  Uma  and  Siva,  as  told  by  Kalidasa  in 
the  "  Kumara-sambhava." 


PLATE   XIII 


SCULPTURE     FROM     THE     TAUPATRI     TEMl'LE,     MADRAS 
(From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Nicholas  &  Co.,  Madras) 


AN   ALLEGORY   OF   SPRING  loi 

The  whole  of  the  third  act  of  Kalidasa's  play, 
Malikagnimitra,  is  founded  upon  it.  Dharini,  the 
first  Queen  of  Agnimitra,  had  been  told  that  an 
asoka-tree  in  her  palace  garden  was  languishing. 
She  therefore  sends  her  beautiful  handmaiden, 
Malika,  to  revive  it,  as  she  herself  had  sprained 
her  ankle  in  falling  from  a  swing.  The  King,  who 
is  deeply  smitten  with  Malika  s  charms,  is  in  the 
garden  when  she  comes  to  fulfil  the  Queen's 
commands,  and  hides  himself,  together  with  a 
courtier,  his  confidant,  while  the  preliminaries  of 
the  magic  rite  are  being  arranged.  First  a  fellow- 
handmaid  colours  the  soles  of  Malika's  feet  with 
lac,  and  skilfully  draws  upon  them  with  the  brush 
a  lotus-flower  in  full  bloom.  Then  she  puts  on 
her  ankles  a  pair  of  nouparas,  ornaments  which 
are  symbolic  of  Kama,  the  god  of  love.  Malika, 
taking  a  branch  of  the  asoka-tree  in  one  hand  and 
making  ear-pendants  of  the  buds,  touches  the  tree 
with  her  left  foot.  ^  The  King,  who  is  in  raptures 
at  the  sight,  then  comes  forward  ;  but  the  sudden 
appearance  of  the  second  Queen  on  the  scene  creates 
an  amusing  but,  for  the  King,  a  very  disconcert- 
ing diversion,  which  ends  this  act  of  the  play. 

On  the  eastern  gate  of  the  Sanchi  tope  there 
is  a  very  fine  sculpture  of  a  young  woman  clinging 
to  the  branches  of  an  asoka-tree  with  both  arms, 
and  with  the  sole  of  her  left  foot  pressing  against 

1  Woman  is  said  to  have  been  born  of  the  left  side  of  Brahma,  the 
Creator,  and  that  seems  to  be  the  reason  why  the  left  side  of  her  body 
is  considered  to  be  purer  than  her  right  side. 

7* 


102  A   SOUTH    INDIAN   MOTIF 

the  trunk.  Her  legs  are  almost  completely  covered 
with  ornaments.^  A  similar  subject  from  Gandhara 
is  illustrated  by  Dr.  Vogel  in  a  recent  article 
published  in  the  Bulletin  de  rRcole  Franqaise 
d'Extrhne  Orient.'^  Plate  XII.  gives  a  more 
modern  example  from  an  Orissan  temple. 

In  later  South  Indian  sculpture  a  very  similar 
7notif\s  common,  called  by  modern  temple  crafts- 
men, "  the  girl  with  the  creeper  falling  over  her." 
(Plate  XI I L).  A  young  woman,  probably  meant 
for  an  apsard,  resting  on  the  left  leg  and  with  the 
right  leg  crossed  in  front  of  it,  stands  on  the  back 
of  a  inakara,  the  fish-emblem  of  the  god  of  love. 
The  tnakara  holds  in  its  mouth  the  stem  of  a 
conventionalised  creeper  which  winds  in  richly  ela- 
borated scrolls  over  the  head  of  the  figure.  With 
one  hand  raised  up  she  grasps  the  lower  tendrils  of 
the  creeper  ;  the  other  hand  rests  easily  upon  her 
hip — the  attitude  of  Malika  when  she  ravished  the 
heart  of  King  Agnimitra  under  the  asoka-tree. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  attempt  to  follow  the 
symbology  of  Hinduism  in  all  its  intricate  details. 
For  understanding  Indian  art  it  is  not  necessary 
to  acquire  the  erudition  of  the  savant ;  those  who 
are  absorbed  in  counting  trees  often  miss  the  beauty 
of  the  wood.  It  is  much  more  important  to  recog- 
nise principles  which  apply  not  more  particularly 
to  Indian  art  than  to  art-criticism  in  general. 

In  the  explanations   I   have  given  here  and 

1  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XXIX. 
*  Juillet-Septembre,  1909. 


THE    MEANING    OF    SYMBOLS  103 

elsewhere  I  have  endeavoured  to  attach  to  Indian 
artistic  symbols  the  meanings  which  the  great 
Indian  artists  who  used  them  intended  them  to 
convey,  not  that  which,  now  or  formerly,  has  been 
given  to  them  by  superstitious  priests  and  ignorant 
peasants.  No  art  can  be  interpreted  correctly 
unless  it  is  clearly  understood  that  there  is  a 
process  of  evolution  in  the  meaning  of  symbols, 
as  in  religious  ideas.  Much  of  the  misunder- 
standing and  depreciation  of  Indian  culture  in 
Europe  has  been  due  to  the  want  of  recognition 
of  this  principle. 

It  may  be  partly  true,  as  Sir  George  Birdwood 
is  always  insisting,  that  "  India  has  remained,  to 
the  present  day,  a  reservation  of  antiquity — 
Chaldaean,  Assyrian,  and  Babylonian."  If  local 
traditions  and  superstitions  are  considered,  the 
same  might  be  said  of  many  parts  of  Christian 
Europe ;  but  one  does  not  look  to  European  folk- 
lore or  the  thoughts  of  the  ignorant  peasant  to 
interpret  the  higher  spiritual  significance  of  Chris- 
tianity. In  the  same  way  it  is  utterly  misleading 
to  interpret  the  great  works  of  Indian  sculpture 
and  painting  in  an  academic  or  pedantic  sense 
totally  at  variance  with  the  philosophy  which  in- 
spired Indian  culture  in  all  its  higher  aspects,  and 
to  ascribe  to  symbolic  forms  used  by  Indian  artists 
and  philosophers  in  the  fifth  century  a.d.  mean- 
ings which  may  or  may  not  have  been  applied 
to  them,  in  other  remote  countries,  500  or  5,000 
years  before  Christ. 


I04         THE    MEANING   OF    SYMBOLS 

We  must  attach  to  Christian  symbols  the 
meaning  given  them  by  Christian  artists  and  the 
early  Christian  Fathers,  not  that  which  Hindu 
archaeologists  might  be  inclined  to  ascribe  to  them. 
Similarly,  if  we  would  understand  Indian  art,  or 
any  aspect  of  Indian  culture,  we  must  give  to. 
Siva,  Ganesha,  and  other  Indian  symbols  the 
meaning  which  Indian  artists  and  authoritative 
Indian  teachers  originally  gave  to  them,  and  not 
confuse  them  with  the  superstitions  of  the  un- 
cultured, or  read  into  them  their  prehistoric 
derivations. 

It  is  quite  certain,  as  Count  D'Alviella  has  so 
admirably  explained  in  his  book  on  the  Migration 
of  Symbols,  that  each  religion  preserves  in  its 
rites  and  symbols  survivals  of  the  whole  series  of 
former  religions  ;  but,  as  he  wisely  observes,  '*  it 
is  not  the  vessel  that  is  important,  but  the  wine 
which  we  pour  into  it ;  not  the  form,  but  the  ideas 
which  animate  and  transcend  the  form." 

It  is  by  concentrating  themselves  upon  the 
forms,  rather  than  upon  the  ideas  which  animate 
them,  that  many  archaeologists  have  gone  so 
much  astray  in  their  interpretations  of  Indian  art. 
Though  Indian  artists  borrowed  the  traditional 
forms  of  Egypt,  Chaldaea,  Assyria,  Babylonia, 
and  Greece,  it  was  not  the  ideas  originally  asso- 
ciated with  those  forms  which  gave  them  inspira- 
tion, but  the  philosophy  of  the  Upanishads  and 
the  teachings  of  their  spiritual  leaders. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   THREE   PATHS 

In  the  psychology  of  Indian  art  the  underlying 
religious  ideals,  which  make  it  so  closely  akin  to 
the  Christian  art  of  the  Middle  Ages,  are  contained 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  Three  Paths,  the  three  ways 
leading  to  salvation,  known  as  the  way  of  works 
(karma-rnargd),  the  way  of  faith  {bhakti-margd), 
and  the  way  of  knowledge  {gnana-margd) ;  which 
may  be  explained  as  the  concept  of  the  Trimtlrti 
applied  to  human  life  and  conduct. 

It  is  hardly  within  the  province  of  an  artist  to 
enter  upon  the  archaeological  question  as  to  when 
those  ideas  were  first  named  and  shaped  by  priests 
and  schoolmen  into  definite  religious  concepts,  ot 
to  join  in  the  keen  controversy  as  to  how  much 
modern  Hinduism  is  indebted  to  Christian  teach- 
ing. But  I  think  it  must  be  evident  to  every  one 
with  artistic  insight  who  reads  Indian  art,  not  in 
Sanskrit  and  Pali  texts,  but  in  the  great  monu- 
ments which  Indian  artists  bequeathed  to  posterity, 
that,  just  as  the  spiritual  impulses  which  created 
Indian  art  originated  in  times  long  anterior  to  the 


io6  THE   THREE    PATHS 

sculptures  of  Bharhut,  Sanchi,  and  Gandhara,  so 
the  religious  ideals  which  underlie  the  doctrine  of 
the  Three  Paths  are  of  much  greater  antiquity  than 
the  Vaishnavaite  sect  of  Hinduism,  which  now 
claims  one  of  them  for  itself. 

These  ideals  have  been  the  common  property 
of  all  Indian  art,  from  the  time  of  Asoka  down  to 
the  present  day.  Moksha,  spiritual  freedom,  has 
always  been  the  goal  of  Indian  desire,  hymned 
with  as  much  passionate  fervour  by  the  Buddhist 
bhikku  and  bhikkuni  as  by  Hindu  religious  de- 
votees, and  striven  for  as  keenly  by  the  unlearned 
pilgrim  and  sddhu  as  by  the  Brahmin  sannydsi. 
Islam  gave  the  goal  another  name,  and  put  for- 
ward another  spiritual  guide,  but  the  goal  remained 
the  same. 

The  three  paths  to  salvation  distinguished 
three  different  religious  temperaments,  and  three 
classifications  of  intellectuality,  of  occupation,  and 
of  social  rank.  The  path  of  highest  attainment, 
that  of  knowledge,  was  that  marked  out  especially 
for  the  Brahmin  priest  or  the  intellectual  Kshatriya: 
it  was  the  shortest  and  most  direct  way  to  Nirvana. 
The  path  of  works,  or  service,  was  for  the  busy 
man  of  the  world,  for  the  statesman,  the  artist,  the 
merchant,  the  artisan,  and  the  common  labourer. 
The  path  of  faith  had  a  more  general  application, 
for  it  was  a  way  which  was  open  to  all  classes  ; 
all  whose  hearts  were  filled  with  the  love  of  God 
and  gave  their  lives  to  Him  could  find  salvation 

^  Bhakti-marga. 


BHAKTI  107 

in  bhakti,  though  worldly  pursuits  might  clog 
their  feet  and  make  the  way  longer  and  more 
difficult. 

Bhakti  comprehends  all  the  three  cardinal  vir- 
tues— faith,  hope,  and  charity.  Dr.  Grierson,  sum- 
marising the  aphorisms  of  Sandilya,  says  that 
"it  is  not  knowledge,  though  it  may  be  the  result 
of  knowledge.  It  is  not  worship,  etc.  These  are 
merely  outward  acts,  and  bhakti  need  not  necessarily 
be  present  in  them.  It  is  simply  and  solely  an 
affection  devoted  to  a  person,  and  not  belief  in  a 
system.  There  is  a  promise  of  immortality  to  him 
who  'abides'  in  Him.  A  wish  is  selfish  ;  affection 
is  unselfish.  It  is  not  a  'work,'  and  does  not 
depend  upon  an  effort  of  the  will.  The  fruit  of 
'works'  is  transient ;  that  of  bhakti  is  eternal  life. 
Works,  if  they  are  pure,  are  a  means  to  bhakti. 
To  be  pure,  they  must  be  surrendered  to  Him; 
i.e.  the  doer  must  say,  'Whatever  I  do,  with  or 
without  my  will,  being  all  surrendered  to  Thee, 
I  do  it  as  impelled  by  Thee.  Good  actions,  done 
for  the  good  results  which  they  produce  in  a  future 
life,  do  not  produce  bhakti,  but  are  a  bondage." 

Joined  with  this  religious  fervour  was  the  in- 
tense feeling  of  reverence  and  love  of  nature,  that 
which  shines  out  first  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  which 
illumines  the  great  epics  and  all  the  best  Indian 
literature.  The  places  in  which  the  gods  loved 
to  dwell,  and  auspicious  for  their  temples,  were 
the  wooded  hill-tops,  the  green,  sequestered  forest 
glades,  and  the  cool  mountain-ridges  overlooking 


io8  APPRECIATION    OF    NATURE 

an  endless  stretch  of  dust-laden  plain,  where  the 
weary  soul  could  rest  and  sing : 

Oh,  free  indeed  !     Oh,  gloriously  free  am  I !  ^ 

Or,  as  a  Hindu  astrologer  writes : 

"  On  sandy  banks  scratched  by  the  nails  of 
aquatic  birds,  and  as  charming  to  the  eye  and  heart 
as  the  swelling  hips  of  sportful  damsels.  Or  near  a 
lake  azure  as  the  clear  sky,  where  dark  lotuses  are 
open,  like  so  many  eyes,where  skipping  swans  form, 
as  it  were,  a  white  umbrella,  and  ducks,  ospreys, 
and  cranes  raise  their  cries.  ...  Or  on  the  seaside 
crowded  with  happily  arrived  splendid  ships,  and 
showing  a  line  half  dark,  half  white,  owing  to  the 
fishes  and  white  birds  lurking  in  the  rotang." 

Or,  again  : 

"  Places  where  rivers  flow,  having  curlews 
for  their  tinkling  zone,  singing  swans  for  their 
melodious  voice,  the  water-sheet  for  their  cover, 
and  carps  for  their  belt ;  regions  where  streams 
have  blooming  trees  on  the  margin  .  .  .  tracts 
of  land  in  the  neighbourhood  of  woods,  rivers, 
rocks,  and  cataracts;  townswith  pleasure-gardens — 
it  is  in  such  places  that  the  gods  at  all  times 
take  delight."  ^ 

This  appreciation  of  nature's  charm  is,  indeed, 
the  feeling  which  inspires  all  art.  But  there  is 
a  distinction   which   makes   the  Indian  outlook 

^  "  Psalms  of  the  Sisters,"  No.  XL     Translated  by  Mrs.  Rhys  Davids. 
2  "  Brihat-sanghita  of  Variha-mihira."    Translated  by   Dr.    Kern. 
J.E.A.S.^  vol.  vi.  part  i.  pp.  72  ^/  seg.^  and  part  ii.  p.  317. 


MANKIND   AND   ANIMALS  109 

fundamentally  different  to  that  of  the  West.  In 
Western  thought  man  is  supreme,  and  its  whole 
ideal  of  beauty  is  centred  in  the  human  form.  It 
is  for  man's  delight  that  nature  is  so  gaily 
dressed  ;  for  him  the  sun  and  moon  do  shine,  and 
the  trees  bring  forth  their  flowers  and  fruit.  For 
his  salvation  God  reveals  Himself.  The  dumb 
animals  are  his  companions  and  friends  only  when 
they  minister  to  his  needs,  sustenance  and  comfort; 
they  have  no  place  in  his  heaven. 

There  is  no  parallel  in  Western  hagiology  to 
the  touching  incident  in  the  Mahabharata  when 
Yudhishthira,  the  sole  survivor  of  the  heroic 
Pandava  brothers,  having  at  last  reached  the 
Gates  of  Swarga,  is  met  by  Indra  himself,  but 
refuses  to  enter  the  shining  car  which  will  trans- 
port him  to  Paradise  unless  his  faithful  dog  is 
allowed  to  accompany  him  :  ''  O  mighty  Indra ! 
I  will  not  forsake  this  dog  of  mine,  even  for  my 
own  salvation." 

Only  in  rare  moments  of  illumination  has 
Christian  Europe  realised,  with  St.  Francis,  that 
all  creation  is  one.  It  has  been  left  to  modern 
science  to  confirm  what  Indian  philosophy  taught 
three  thousand  years  ago,  and  what  Indian  art 
has  ever  sought  to  express. 

Since  the  days  of  remote  antiquity  when  the 
mA/5addressed  their  prayers  to  the  Unknown  God: 

"  He  who  gives  breath.  He  who  gives  strength, 
whose  command  all  the  bright  angels  revere,  whose 


no  NATURE'S    LAMENT 

shadow  is  immortality,  whose  shadow  is  death.  .  .  . 
He  who,  through  His  might,  became  the  sole  King 
of  the  breathing  and  twinkling  world ;  who  governs 
all  this,  man  and  beast "  ^ — 

this  has  been  India's  message  to  the  world  ;  and 
this  is  the  faith  of  every  Indian  peasant  to-day. 

When  Rama  started  off  to  his  exile  in  the 
forest,  all  nature  joined  in  the  entreaties  of  the 
sorrowing  citizens  of  Ayodhya  : 

Thick  darkness  o'er  the  sun  was  spread  ; 
The  cows  their  thirsty  calves  denied, 
And  elephants  flung  their  food  aside. 

Each  lowly  bush,  each  towering  tree 
Would  follow  too  for  love  of  thee. 
Bound  by  its  roots  it  must  remain, 
But — all  it  can — its  boughs  complain. 
As,  when  the  wild  wind  rushes  by. 
It  tells  its  love  in  groan  and  sigh. 
No  more  through  air  the  gay  birds  flit, 
But,  foodless,  melancholy,  sit 
Together  on  a  branch  and  call 
To  thee,  whose  kind  heart  feels  for  all.^ 

Sita  s  first  care,  when  the  edge  of  the  forest 
was  reached,  was  to  invoke  the  spirit  of  the  lordly 
pipal-tree  : 

"  Hail,  hail,  O  mighty  tree  !   Allow 
My  husband  to  complete  his  vow  ; 
Let  us,  returning,  I  entreat, 
Kauslaya  and  Sumitra  meet." 
Then,  with  her  hands  together  placed, 
Around  the  tree  she  duly  paced. 

^  Rig- Veda,   121.     Translated  by   Max  Miiller  :     "Sacred   Books 
of  the  East,"  vol.  xxxii.  p.  i. 

2  The  "  Ramayana,"  canto  xlv.     Griffith's  translation. 


REINCARNATION  in 

It  is  not  the  ignorance  and  superstition  of  tiie 
primitive  savage,  but  a  firmly  rooted  belief  in  the 
doctrine  of  reincarnation  and  in  the  immanence 
of  God,  which  makes  the  Indian  express  so 
reverently  and  worshipfully  his  intimate  fellow- 
ship with  all  created  things ;  addressing  his 
prayers,  not  to  stocks  and  stones,  but  to  the  all- 
prevailing  Spirit  which  dwells  therein.  Gautama 
himself  had  passed  through  all  forms  of  life  in 
his  progress  to  Nirvana,  and  in  the  tree,  worm, 
or  insect,  or  in  the  beast  of  the  field,  there  still 
might  dwell  the  soul  of  the  Buddha  that  is  to 
come. 

The  Indian  poet  makes  Prince  Siddhartha, 
when  finally  he  set  out  on  his  mission  to  redeem 
mankind,  caress  his  good  horse  Kamthaka  and 
exhort  him,  '*  like  a  friend,  to  his  duty,"  to  strive 
for  his  own  good  and  the  good  of  the  world  ;  and 
on  parting  from  him,  when  the  "  noblest  of  steeds" 
licked  Siddhartha's  feet  and  dropped  hot  tears, 
these  were  the  Prince's  consoling  words  :  ''  Shed 
not  tears,  Kamthaka.  This  thy  perfect  equine 
nature  has  been  proved — bear  with  it ;  this  thy 
labour  will  soon  have  its  fruit."  ^ 

And  so  the  Indian  artist  is  always  convinced 
that  the  bhakti  which  inspires  his  own  work  is 
shared  by  all  creation.  In  the  sculptures  of  Sancht 
and  Amaravati  he  shows  the  wild  elephants  coming 
to  pour  libations  over  the  sacred  tree  under  which 

^  "  The  Buddha-karita  of  Ashvagosha,"  book  vi.  58.    Translated  by 
E.  B.  Cowell. 


112  INDIAN    SYMBOLISM 

the  Buddha  sat,  and  all  the  denizens  of  the  forest 
join  with  their  human  fellow-creatures  in  adoration 
of  the  Buddha's  footprints,  his  begging-bowl,  or 
his  relic-shrines.  It  is  to  symbolise  this  universal 
fellowship  of  man,  the  unity  of  all  creation,  that 
the  Indian  artist  loves  to  crowd  into  his  picture 
all  forms  of  teeming  life,  while  the  Western  is 
always  insisting  on  plain  spaces  for  emphasising 
the  supremacy  of  man,  for  isolating  and  for 
preserving  artistic  unity.  From  this  motive  the 
Indian  sculptor  adds  enrichment  upon  enrichment 
to  his  decorative  scheme,  the  architect  breaks  up 
his  ground-plan,  divides  the  spires  of  the  temples 
into  many  facets,  piles  pinnacle  upon  pinnacle, 
and  uses  every  constructive  feature  to  symbolise 
the  universal  law  of  the  One  in  many. 

The  European  critic  and  art-teacher,  not 
understanding  the  Indian  motive,  and  generally 
standing  quite  aloof  from  the  Indian  environment, 
lectures  the  Indian  in  a  tone  of  intellectual 
superiority  upon  lack  of  classical  simplicity  and 
neglect  of  artistic  **  principles."  The  Indian,  striv- 
ing to  learn  the  wisdom  of  the  West,  flounders 
helplessly  in  an  intellectual  element  totally  foreign 
to  his  spiritual  instinct,  and  his  brain  merely  re- 
cords automatically  the  prescriptions  of  his  pedantic 
teachers.  But  it  is  altogether  unjust  to  attribute 
incoherency  and  want  of  co-ordination  to  Indian 
art  in  general.  Nothing  is  more  admirable  in  the 
great  monuments  of  India  than  the  consummate 
skill  and  imagination  with  which,  in  spite  of  the 


INDIAN    ART   AND   BHAKTI  113 

extraordinary  wealth  of  detail,  every  part  of  the 
whole  is  perfectly  adjusted  to  its  place  and  so 
balanced  that  aesthetic  unity  is  always  perfectly 
preserved. 

It  is  only  when  bhakti  is  lost  and  the  whole 
spiritual  basis  of  Indian  art  is  superseded  by  the 
modern  commercial  instinct,  when  the  Indian 
barters  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage  and 
manufactures  by  the  yard  for  the  markets  of 
Europe,  that  it  becomes  incoherent  and  meretri- 
cious. And  it  is  generally  by  this  commercial 
trash  that  artistic  Europe  now  judges  India. 

Indian  art  has  never  been  surpassed  in  ex- 
pressing, with  perfect  simplicity  and  directness, 
the  pure  devotion  and  self-surrender  implied  in 
bhakti — "  Whatever  I  do,  with  or  without  my  will, 
being  all  surrendered  to  Thee,  I  do  it  as  impelled 
by  Thee."  It  is  the  motif  in  the  exquisite  group 
of  the  mother  and  child  before  Buddha  in  the 
Ajanta  cave-paintings,  and  in  one  of  the  most 
perfect  of  the  B6r6budilr  reliefs — that  which  shows 
the  Buddha  arriving  on  the  shores  of  Java,  having 
crossed  the  ocean  on  a  lotus-flower  to  bring  his 
message  to  the  island.  In  the  sky  above  the 
spirits  of  the  air  throng  together  joyfully,  bringing 
their  offerings  and  throwing  flowers  around  him. 
On  earth  the  prince  and  his  wives  prostrate  them- 
selves at  his  feet ;  and  the  deer  from  the  forest  calls 
to  her  little  one  to  join  in  adoration  of  the  Lord 
of  the  deer  who  had  once  offered  his  life  for  them.^ 

1  "  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XXXV. 
8 


114  INDIAN    ART   AND   BHAKTI 

As  a  religious  cult  bhakti  finds  artistic  ex- 
pression in  modern  Hindu  art  in  subjects  relating 
to  the  love  of  Radha  for  Krishna,  where  Krishna 
is  the  Indian  Orpheus,  drawing  all  creation  to 
listen  to  the  divine  music  of  his  flute,  and  where 
Radha's  passionate  devotion  is  the  symbol  of  the 
soul's  yearning  for  God. 

In  Southern  India  the  religious  idealism  of 
bhakti  is  represented  by  a  series  of  fine  quasi- 
portrait  statuettes  now  in  the  Colombo  Museum. 
Plate  XIV.  is  a  bronze  figure  of  Apparswami,  a 
native  of  Southern  India,  who  lived  about  the 
sixth  century  a.d.  He  was  first  a  Buddhist,  but 
afterwards  became  an  apostle  of  Jainism,  and  his 
hymns  in  praise  of  Siva  are  still  sung  in  South 
Indian  temples.  To  testify  his  devotion  he  went 
about  weeding  the  courtyards  of  the  temples,  and 
he  is  here  represented  with  hands  joined  in  prayer 
and  the  weeding  implement  resting  on  his  left 
shoulder.  He  was  a  contemporary  and  friend  of 
another  Saivaite  saint,  Tiru-gnana-sambandha 
Swami,  who  was  said  to  have  been  called  to  the 
worship  of  Siva  when  a  child,  and  went  about 
singing  his  praises  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  pair 
of  golden  cymbals.^  There  are  several  statuettes 
of  this  swami  in  the  Colombo  collection. 

Plate  XV.  is  from  a  very  beautiful  bronze 
statuette  of  Sundara  Mtirti  Swami,  also  in  the 
Colombo  Museum,  which  is  attributed  to  the  tenth 

^  See  Spolia  Ceylonica,  issued  by  the  Colombo  Museum,  September 
1909,  p.  68. 


PLATE   XIV 


■s  J  ,»    J  '  » 


AI'PARSWAMI 


INDIAN   ART   AND   BHAKTI  115 

or  eleventh  century  a.d.  The  charming  story  of 
the  saint's  illumination  and  consecration  to  the 
service  of  Siva  is  told  by  Dr.  Coomaraswamy  in 
his  "Selected  Examples  of  Indian  Art."^ 

These  saintly  legends  sufficiently  explain  the 
devotional  spirit  by  which  these  statuettes  are 
animated.  The  spirit  of  bhakti,  the  simple,  child- 
like faith  which  finds  full  and  complete  satisfaction 
of  all  worldly  desires  in  the  worship  and  service 
of  God,  is  perfectly  expressed  in  the  rapt  face,  the 
unstudied  reverential  attitude,  and  in  the  deliberate 
exclusion  of  all  petty  technical  details  which  might 
divert  attention  from  the  all-absorbing  motif.  It 
is  an  art,  with  perfect  control  of  technical  methods, 
which  from  its  intense  sincerity  and  depth  of 
religious  conviction  makes  no  parade  of  virtuosity; 
it  aims  straight  for  truth,  and  hits  the  mark  with 
effortless  ease.  The  personality  of  the  artist  is 
merged  in  his  own  creations. 

This,  indeed,  is  essentially  a  characteristic  of 
all  Indian  religious  art,  which  it  shares  with  the 
Gothic  art  of  Europe — that  the  artist  seeks  no 
reward  of  fame  or  riches.  He  has  no  biographers  ; 
his  masterpieces  are  unsigned.  He  is  content  that 
his  own  identity  shall  be  completely  lost  in  his  art, 
his  name  forgotten.  The  merit  which  he  gains  is 
only  that  which  is  reckoned  in  the  great  account 
hereafter. 

Mr.  Binyon,  I  think,  wrongly  infers,  from  the 
paucity  of  literary  references  to  the  lives  and  works 

*  Essex  House  Press,  1910. 


ii6  ART   AND    LITERATURE 

of  artists  in  India,  that  the  aesthetic  sense  is  lacking 
in  the  Indian  character,  that  it  has  played  an  in- 
ferior part  in  the  national  life.  One  fact  which  he 
has  overlooked  is  that  practically  the  whole  of  that 
part  of  Indian  literature,  the  Silpa  Sastras,  which 
is  concerned  with  the  principles  and  practice 
of  art,  has  hitherto  been  completely  ignored  by 
European  scholars.  No  one  has  even  thought  it 
worth  while  to  compile  a  catalogue,  much  less  to 
devote  time  to  the  study  of  it.  So  far  as  art  is 
concerned,  Indian  literature  is  a  totally  unexplored 
field.  But,  even  allowing  that  in  Chinese  litera- 
ture aesthetic  subjects  are  given  a  more  important 
place,  that  by  no  means  proves  that  the  artistic 
perceptions  of  the  Chinese  races  have  been  more 
developed  than  those  of  Indians.  No  one  will  say 
that  Europeans  of  the  present  day  have  profounder 
artistic  convictions,  finer  aesthetic  sensibility,  or 
higher  accomplishments  than  their  forefathers ; 
yet  at  no  period  in  history  has  European  literature 
concerned  itself  so  much  with  art  as  at  the  present 
time. 

Art  must  always  speak  for  itself;  we  must 
judge  Indian  art  by  its  own  achievements.  In 
spite  of  centuries  of  vandalism  and  neglect,  there 
remains  enough  of  it  to  show  that  Indian  genius 
has  never  lacked  the  power  to  express  its  highest 
religious  ideals  in  worthy  aesthetic  form.  True, 
it  may  be  that  the  idea  of  art  for  art's  sake  did 
not  take  root  in  the  Indian  mind  except  in  the 
luxurious  Courts  of  the  Mogul  Emperors.     That 


PLATE   XV 


sundara-mOrti  swami 


BHAKTI  IN   THE    EAST   AND   WEST     ii; 

is  simply  an  indication  of  the  Hindu  view  of  life 
as  a  whole,  of  the  spirit  of  self-surrender  always 
insisted  upon  by  Indian  philosophers  and  religious 
teachers — to  work  without  attachment  to  the  fruits 
of  work  ;  to  realise  self  by  resting  on  the  One 
Supreme  Self.  This  is  very  far  from  being  a 
doctrine  of  aesthetic  nihilism ;  no  one  who  pene- 
trates beneath  the  surface  of  Indian  thought  and 
life  could  take  it  in  that  sense. 

Bhakti  is  the  moving  spirit  in  all  great  religious 
art,  in  the  West  as  in  the  East.  It  is  bhakti 
which  lifts  the  art  of  Fra  Angelico,  or  of  Bellini, 
into  a  higher  spiritual  plane  than  that  of  Titian  or 
Corregio.  It  is  bhakti  that  we  miss  in  nearly  all 
the  great  masters  of  the  Renaissance.  Vanity, 
intellect,  and  wealth  could  raise  another  monument 
greater  than  St.  Peter's  at  Rome ;  only  bhakti 
could  revive  the  glories  of  Bourges,  Chartres,  or  the 
other  great  Gothic  cathedrals  of  medieval  Europe. 
Forced  labour,  money,  and  artistic  genius  might 
create  another  Diwan-i-khas  at  Delhi — another 
Elysium  on  earth  for  sensual  desires — and  perhaps 
another  Taj  Mahal.  But  without  bhakti  India, 
whether  she  be  Hindu,  Muhammadan,  or  Christian, 
can  never  again  build  shrines  like  those  of  Sanchi, 
Ajanta,  Elephanta,  or  Ellora :  and  when  bhakti  is 
dead  India,  from  being  the  home  of  the  world's 
religions,  will  become  the  storm-centre  of  the  East. 

It  is  bhakti  which  now  keeps  Indian  art 
alive :  it  is  the  lack  of  it  which  makes  modern 
Western  art  so  lifeless.     The  same  spirit  which 


ii8  BHAKTI  IN    MODERN    LIFE 

in  the  days  of  Asoka  and  Kanishka  brought 
thousands  of  willing  craftsmen  to  devote  their  lives 
to  the  service  of  the  Blessed  One  in  building  and 
adorning  the  stupasoi  Bharhut,  Sanchi,  and  Amara- 
vati,  that  same  devotion  which  impelled  the  wor- 
shippers of  Siva  or  of  Vishnu,  century  after  century, 
to  the  stupendous  task  of  hewing  out  of  the  living 
rock  the  temples  of  Ellora  and  Elephanta,  and  the 
followers  of  Mahavira  to  carve  with  infinite  labour, 
fantasy,  and  skill  the  marvellous  arabesques  and 
tracery  of  their  temples  in  Western  India — this 
bhakti  is  still  a  potent  force  in  India,  and  if  Great 
Britain  could  produce  a  statesman  of  Akbar  s 
artistic  understanding  it  might  still  be  used,  as 
Akbar  used  it,  to  consolidate  the  foundations  of 
our  Indian  Empire.  But  this  great  spiritual  force 
we  usually  ignore  and  condemn  as  superstition 
and  barbarism.  We  try  to  exterminate  it  by  the 
contra-forces  of  European  science,  European  mate- 
rialism, and  European  Philistinism. 

Anglo-Indians  have  always  ascribed  the  artistic 
triumphs  of  the  Indian  Mogul  dynasty  to  the 
superior  aesthetic  genius  of  Islam ;  but  this  is  a 
quite  untrue  reading  of  Indian  art-history.  They 
should  rather  be  attributed  to  the  wonderful  state- 
craft of  the  free-thinker  Akbar  in  rallying  round 
his  throne  all  the  hereditary  artistic  skill  of  Hindu- 
stan, and  in  building  up  his  empire  with  the  bhakti 
of  Hinduism  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  Mikados 
of  Japan  used  the  national  cult  of  Shintoism  to 
strengthen  their  own  dynasty.     The  Moguls  in 


INDIA   AND    ISLAM  119 

China,  in  Persia,  in  India,  and  wherever  else  they 
went,  assimilated  the  art  of  the  races  they  conquered. 
The  art  of  Fatehpur-Sikri  and  of  Jahangir's  great 
palace  at  Agra  is  essentially  Hindu  art.  Abul 
Fazl,  writing  with  full  appreciation  of  contemporary 
painting,  says  of  the  Hindus:  "Their  pictures  sur- 
pass our  conception  of  things.  Few  indeed  in  the 
whole  world  are  found  equal  to  them."  ^  Even  in 
the  Taj  Mahal,  the  typical  masterpiece  of  what  we 
call  Mogul  art,  many  of  the  principal  craftsmen 
were  Hindus,  or  of  Hindu  descent ;  and  how  much 
Persian  art  owed  to  the  frequent  importation  of 
Indian  artists  and  craftsmen  is  never  understood 
by  European  art-critics. 

The  splendid  Muhammadan  architecture  of 
Bijapur  derived  much  of  its  grandeur  and  beauty 
from  the  skilful  adaptation  of  Hindu  principles  of 
construction  and  design.  All  the  great  monuments 
of  Saracenic  art  in  India  surpass  those  of  Arabia, 
Turkey,  Egypt,  and  Spain,  in  the  exact  measure 
by  which  they  were  indebted  to  Hindu  craftsman- 
ship and  inspired  by  Hindu  idealism.  The  mosques 
of  Cairo  and  Constantinople  seem  almost  insignifi- 

^  "  Ain-i-Akbari,"  Blochmann's  translation,  vol.  i.  p.  107.  Abul  Fazl's 
appreciation  will  be  understood  by  any  art-critic  who  has  an  opportunity 
of  studying  side  by  side  a  representative  collection  of  Persian  and  Indian 
miniature  paintings  of  the  Mogul  period.  Those  of  direct  Persian 
origin,  in  spite  of  the  exquisite  grace  and  fine  technical  qualities  which 
they  often  have,  lack  the  penetrative  insight  of  the  Hindu  artist's  work. 
The  former  might  be  compared  with  the  French  schools  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  in  their  daintiness  and  chic,  the  latter  have  more  of  the  senti- 
ment of  the  early  Flemish  schools,  or  of  Carpaccio,  with  something  of 
the  profound  insight  of  Rembrandt. 


I20  INDIA   AND    ISLAM 

cant  in  design  and  feeble  in  construction  compared 
with  those  of  Bijapur,  Delhi,  Fatehpur-Sikri,  and 
Ahmedabad.  The  painted  stucco  and  the  geo- 
metric ingenuity  of  the  Alhambra  are  cold  and 
monotonous  beside  the  consummate  craft  and 
imagination  of  the  Mogul  palaces  in   India. 

And  what  is  it  in  the  Taj  Mahal — that  indefin- 
able something  always  felt  rather  than  understood 
by  those  who  have  tried  to  describe  it — but  the 
subtle  inspiration  of  Hindu  genius  which  animates 
the  lifeless  stones  and  makes  one  feel  that  it  is  not 
a  cold  monument  of  marble,  but  Shah  Jahan's 
beloved,  Mumtaz  Mahal  herself,  who  lingers  still 
in  all  her  youthful  beauty  upon  the  banks  of  the 
shining  Jumna  ?  The  inspiration  of  the  Taj  came 
not  from  its  Muslim  builders :  it  was  the  spirit  of 
India  which  came  upon  it  and  breathed  into  it  the 
breath  of  life. 

Saracenic  art  flourished  in  India  just  so  long 
as  the  Mogul  emperors  were  wise  enough  to 
observe  perfect  impartiality  between  Musalman 
and  Hindu.  When  the  bigot  Aurangzib  expelled 
all  the  Hindu  artists  and  craftsmen  whom  his  father 
and  grandfather  had  attracted  to  the  service  of  the 
state,  the  art  of  the  Moguls  in  India  was  struck 
with  a  blight  from  which  it  never  recovered.  Even 
in  the  present  day  all  that  is  most  fine  and  precious 
in  living  Indian  art  is  found  in  the  art  inspired  by 
this  same  bhakti  produced  by  the  descendants  of 
the  hereditary  Hindu  temple  architects  and  crafts- 
men whom  Akbar  the  Great  enlisted  in  his  service 


THE    REVIVAL   OF    INDIAN   ART      121 

to  carry  out  all  his  public  works,  the  imperial 
palaces,  and  mosques,  as  well  as  durbar  halls, 
offices,  stables,  and  irrigation  works.  The  quality 
of  their  craftsmanship  is  generally  in  no  way 
inferior  to  the  work  of  the  Mogul  time  ;  what  they 
lack  are  the  opportunities  given  them  by  the 
Moguls  which  we  have  hitherto  refused  to  them. 

Indian  art  can  only  be  preserved  by  the  sur- 
vival, or  revival,  of  the  spiritual  power  which 
created  it.  The  spread  of  Western  political  institu- 
tions and  Western  religious  formularies  in  India 
should  not  mean  the  sterilisation  of  the  spirituality 
of  which  Indian  art  is  the  expression. 

It  is  true  that  every  age  has  its  own  special 
needs  and  its  own  ideals.  India  may  not  need 
another  Taj  Mahal,  or  more  glorious  shrines  than 
those  she  now  possesses.  But  for  the  bhakti 
which  created  these  all  the  world  has  need  ;  and 
to  give  India's  spirituality  a  new  impetus  and  a 
wider  range  of  activity  would  be  the  crowning 
achievement  of  British  administration. 

The  art  which  we  now  try  to  propagate  in  India 
gives  no  spiritual  impulse,  and  affords  only  the 
poorest  mental  pabulum  :  with  its  mechanical  per- 
spective, not  related,  like  oriental  perspective,  and 
that  which  served  the  artists  of  Europe  before  the 
days  of  the  Renaissance,  to  the  laws  of  design,  but, 
only  empirically,  to  the  science  of  optics  ;  with  its 
anatomy,  likewise  unrelated  to  artistic  thought ; 
and  its  "  principles,"  which  even  we  ourselves  fail 
to  put  into  practice. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   HISTORICAL   DEVELOPMENT   OF   INDIAN   ART 

The  historical  background  of  Indian  art  is  that 
which  is  furnished  by  the  record  of  India's  great 
spiritual  teachers,  by  the  exploits  of  her  heroes, 
and  by  the  lives  of  her  noble  men  and  women. 
It  may  seem  often  to  the  Western  critic  that  all 
Indian  literature  is  wanting  in  the  historic  sense, 
just  as  Indian  sculpture  and  painting  are  assumed 
to  be  crude  and  inartistic  for  neglect  of  common 
physiological  and  other  scientific  facts.  But  just 
as  Indian  art  is  thoroughly  scientific  in  the  Indian 
sense,  so  Indian  history  also  fulfils  adequately  the 
purpose  which  Indian  historians  had  in  view. 

In  the  great  period  of  Hindu  and  Buddhist 
sculpture  fundamental  physiological  truths  are 
never  disregarded,  though  minor  anatomical  details 
are  rigorously  suppressed  in  order  to  achieve  the 
end  for  which  the  artist  was  striving.  Though 
artistic  facts  are  not  always  sought  for  within  the 
limits  of  the  human  or  animal  world,  yet  the  laws 
of  the  structure  of  man  or  beast  are  never  ignor- 
antly  outraged.    Indian  artistic  anatomy  is  a  pos- 

122 


THE    BASIS   OF    INDIAN    HISTORY     123 

sible  and  consistent  ideal  anatomy,  and  Indian 
perspective  is  a  possible  and  consistent  ideal  per- 
spective. The  offence,  to  the  modern  European 
mind,  is  that  the  science  of  Hindu  and  Buddhist 
art  transcends  the  limits  of  modern  Western 
science  which  would  keep  art,  like  itself,  chained 
to  the  observation  of  natural  effects  and  pheno- 
mena, as  they  are  impressed  upon  the  retina  of 
the  ordinary  human  eye. 

In  the  same  way  Indian  history  is  not  all  a 
chaos  of  wild  and  fantastic  legend,  without  system 
and  without  sequence,  though  such  facts  as  the 
day  on  which  Buddha  died,  or  the  exact  date  of 
the  battle  of  Kurukshetra,  were  never  considered 
of  sufficient  importance  to  be  drummed  into  the 
heads  of  Indian  schoolboys.  Indian  history,  like 
Indian  philosophy  and  Indian  art,  is  a  part  of 
Indian  religion.  The  scientific  basis  is  there :  the 
chronological  sequence  is  not  disregarded  ;  but 
just  as  all  Indian  art  aims  at  showing  the  relation 
between  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  between  the 
material  universe  and  the  spiritual,  so  Indian  his- 
tory is  much  more  concerned  with  the  bearing 
which  human  events  and  actions  have  upon  human 
conduct  than  with  compiling  a  bare  record  of  the 
events  and  actions  themselves.  Indian  history  is 
a  spiritual  guide  and  moral  text-book  for  Indian 
people,  not  a  scientific  chronicle  of  passing  events. 
Every  day,  in  one  of  the  innumerable  worlds,  a 
Buddha  may  die  ;  so  the  day  of  Gautama's  decease 
matters  little  to  us  :   the  way  he  lived  and  the 


124     THE    BASIS    OF    INDIAN    HISTORY 

essence  of  his  teaching  are  the  things  which  are 
counted  in  the  roll  of  the  world's  evolution. 

Then  again,  Indian  history,  like  Indian  art,  is 
ideal.  The  modern  Western  scholar  is  shocked 
at  the  confusion  between  poetry,  romance,  and 
history  which  is  found  in  ancient  records,  both  in 
the  East  and  in  the  West — even  in  the  Christian 
Bible.  He  assumes  that  the  sole  aim  of  the  his- 
torian is  to  reveal  the  bare  threads  of  the  warp 
and  weft  in  the  loom  of  time,  by  picking  out  the 
fair  flowers  of  the  imagination,  with  which  poetry 
and  religion  have  lovingly  embroidered  it.  But 
to  the  oriental  there  is  a  truth  in  idealism  in- 
trinsically more  true  than  what  we  call  the  bare, 
the  naked  truth.  Western  science  can  never  reveal 
the  springs  of  human  action,  nor  discover  the 
spiritual  bearing  of  human  events,  however  mi- 
nutely it  may  dissect  and  explain  the  organisation 
of  matter.  The  "  higher  criticism  "  can  never  de- 
stroy the  essential  truths  of  the  New  Testament, 
nor  can  the  searchlight  of  modern  science  diminish 
the  truth  of  revelation  which  shines  in  the  Buddh- 
ist and  Hindu  Scriptures.  History  is  both  art 
and  science :  the  historian  needs  to  be  a  seer  and 
a  poet  to  present  facts  in  their  true  significance 
and  to  give  to  each  event  its  relative  spiritual 
importance.  The  embroidery  of  the  great  artist 
does  not  weaken  the  fabric  which  Time  weaves  for 
himself :  it  strengthens  while  it  beautifies.  And 
to  those  who  believe  in  a  spiritual  world  as  even 
more  actual  and  real  than  the  phenomenal  world 


ART    IN    THE    EAST   AND   WEST       125 

there  is  as  much  reality  in  the  embroidery  as  in 
the  plain  warp  and  weft  with  which  it  is  inter- 
woven. Though  the  foolish  or  unskilful  em- 
broiderer may  spoil  the  warp,  yet  it  is  only  through 
the  imagination  that  we  can  link  together  the  seen 
and  the  unseen,  and  without  imagination  science 
itself  loses  its  vital  force,  and  the  modern  scientific 
historian  may  become  the  falsest  of  guides. 

There  is  evidence  enough  to  show  that  both 
Eastern  and  Western  ways  of  thought  may  lead 
into  a  morass.  Art  in  the  East  may  degenerate 
into  a  mechanical  repetition  of  debased  hierarchi- 
cal formularies  ;  history,  both  sacred  and  profane, 
may  sink  into  the  most  degraded  obscurantism. 
And  in  the  West,  also,  art  may  end  itself  in  mere 
virtuosity,  or  in  colour  photography,  machine- 
made  sculpture,  and  the  pianola :  the  historic  sense 
may  be  sterilised  through  a  foolish  craze  for  auto- 
graphs, buttons,  and  snuff-boxes.  In  the  middle 
path,  where  safety  lies.  East  and  West,  art  and 
science,  may  go  together  hand  in  hand.  Imagi- 
nation must  always  lean  upon  reason :  reason  must 
ever  seek  a  higher  inspiration  than  its  own.  Siva 
is  greater  than  Ganesha :  yet  Ganesha  is  always 
to  be  first  invoked. 

In  Buddhist  art  the  familiar  story  of  the  Great 
Renunciation  and  all  the  events  of  Gautama's  life 
until  the  final  attainment  of  Nirvana  form  the 
historical  background  for  the  expression  of  Indian 
ideals.  As  commentaries  upon  these  events,  the 
legends  of  his  former  lives,   called  the  jdta 


126  BUDDHIST   ART 

are  added  to  explain  symbolically  the  process  of 
evolution  by  which  the  soul  gradually  obtains 
liberation  from  its  material  attachments:  a  process 
perceived  by  Indian  seers  several  millennia  before 
Western  science  announced  that  all  matter  is  in- 
stinct with  life. 

Through  such  historical  facts,  and  fictions  con- 
taining eternal  verities,  the  Indian  sculptor  and 
painter  instructed  the  crowds  of  pious  pilgrims 
who  thronged  the  procession-paths  enclosing  the 
innumerable  relic-shrines  of  Buddhism,  and  the 
aisles  of  thousands  of  chaityas,  or  churches,  where 
the  members  of  the  Sangha  met  for  worship.  As 
aids  to  meditation  also,  the  walls  and  ceilings  of 
the  great  Buddhist  viharas,  the  monastic  univer- 
sities, were  covered  with  similar  historical  and 
mythological  frescoes  or  sculptures. 

Though  in  the  preceding  chapters  I  have 
followed  archaeological  precedent  in  assuming  that 
the  representation  of  the  divine  ideal  in  Indian 
art,  founded  upon  the  ideal  heroic  type  of  Aryan 
poetry,  is  first  discovered  in  Buddhist  sculpture 
and  painting,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the 
Indian  conception  of  the  Buddha  as  a  divinity 
was  not  adapted  from  earlier  anthropomorphic 
images  worshipped  by  other  sects. 

We  have  seen  that  it  was  not  until  a  com- 
paratively late  period  in  Buddhism  that  the  person 
of  the  Buddha  as  a  divinity  is  represented  in  art ; 
yet  it  is  quite  certain  that  anthropomorphic  idols 
were  worshipped  in  India  long  before  the  earliest 


JAIN    ART  127 

Gandhara  sculpture.  References  to  such  images 
occur  in  several  passages  in  the  Mahabharata ;  e.g. 
in  the  Bhishma  Parva  ^  it  is  mentioned,  as  an  omen 
of  coming  disaster,  that  "  the  idols  of  the  Kuru 
king  in  their  temples  tremble  and  laugh,  and  dance 
and  weep." 

Mahavira,  the  twenty-fourth  Tirthankara  of  the 
Jains,  a  contemporary  of  the  Buddha,  is  commonly 
assumed  to  be  the  founder  of  Jainism ;  but  the  Jains 
themselves  claim  for  their  religion  a  much  greater 
antiquity,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  earliest  images 
of  the  Tirthankaras,  or  deified  heroes,  may  have 
been  the  prototype  followed  by  the  Indian  Buddhist 
image-makers. 

But  it  was  not  in  sculpture  or  in  painting  that 
the  Jain  creative  genius  asserted  itself.  They  were 
magnificent  builders,  and,  as  examples  of  archi- 
tectural design,  the  two  towers  of  victory  at  Chittor, 
of  the  ninth  and  fifteenth  centuries  a.d.,  are  un- 
surpassed of  their  kind  in  the  whole  world,  while 
for  consummate  craftsmanship  and  decorative 
beauty  the  vaulted  roofs  of  shrines  like  that  of 
Mount  Abtl,  built  by  a  merchant  prince,  Vimala 
Sah,  in  a.d.  103 i,  equal  anything  to  be  seen  in 
Buddhist  or  Hindu  buildings.  Though  it  may 
not  be  quite  true  that,  as  Fergusson  says,  the 
Jains  believed  to  a  greater  extent  than  other  Indian 
sects  in  the  efficacy  of  temple-building  as  a  means 
of  salvation,  their  wonderful  "  cities  of  temples  " 
crowning  the  sacred  hills  of  Palitani  and  Girnar 

^  "  Bhishma  Vadha  Parva,"  section  cxiii.     Roy's  translation. 


128  JAIN   ART 

in  Gujerat  have  a  beauty  of  their  own  which  is 
quite  unique.  The  great  majority  of  these  temples 
are  small,  being  the  gifts  of  single  wealthy  persons, 
and,  to  quote  the  same  authority,  "  they  are  de- 
ficient in  that  grandeur  of  proportion  that  marks 
the  buildings  undertaken  by  royal  command  or 
belonging  to  important  organised  communities." 
The  charm  of  Palitana  is  due  to  its  environment 
and  the  poetic  feeling  with  which  the  site  has 
been  treated  architecturally.  The  sculpture  is 
comparatively  unimportant. 

The  Jain  figure-sculptors  occasionally  worked 
on  a  colossal  scale  in  making  the  images  of  their 
saints,  the  Tirthankaras ;  probably  the  finest  ex- 
amples are  the  detached  figures  at  Sravan  Belgola, 
Karkala,  and  Yanniir,  in  Mysore,  which  range  in 
height  from  thirty-five  to  seventy  feet.  These  are 
very  noble  as  art,  quite  apart  from  their  imposing 
dimensions.  But,  as  a  rule,  Jain  figure-sculpture 
seems  to  lack  the  feeling  and  imagination  of  the 
best  Buddhist  and  Hindu  art. 

The  reason  for  this  must  be  attributed  to  the 
character  of  Jain  religious  tenets.  The  sect  of  the 
Jains,  like  that  of  the  Saivaites,  has  always  pre- 
served more  of  the  asceticism  ingrained  in  orthodox 
Brahmanical  teaching  than  did  the  Buddhists,  or 
their  spiritual  successors,  the  Vaishnavaites.^  The 
Jain  ideal  of  quietism  was  to  be  attained  by  the 

^  In  the  fifteenth  century  a.d.  several  Jain  religious  teachers  forbade 
the  worship  of  images  ("  History  and  Literature  of  Jainism,"  by  O.  D. 
Barodia,  p.  77). 


JAIN    ASCETICISM  129 

austerities  of  the  Hindu  ascetic,  and  the  Jain  saints, 
having  reached  the  heaven  of  their  desires,  troubled 
themselves  no  more  with  any  worldly  affairs. 

Even  down  to  the  present  day,  though  life  is 
regarded  as  the  most  sacred  principle  in  nature, 
the  Jains  hold  it  to  be  the  highest  virtue  for  a  man 
or  woman  to  retire  to  some  lonely  consecrated 
spot  and  obtain  final  release  from  worldly  cares  by 
a  process  of  slow  starvation.  At  Sravan  Belgola, 
the  hill  to  the  north  of  that  on  which  the  great 
statue  of  Gomata  stands  is  full  of  such  associations, 
and  many  inscriptions  on  the  rocks  record  the 
passing  away  of  devout  Jain  kings  and  queens, 
and  others  less  distinguished,  who  thus  attained 
Nirvana. 

In  Jainism  there  are  no  divine  incarnations  of 
heroes,  like  Krishna,  who  labour  for  the  material 
prosperity  of  humanity;  neither  did  the  Jain 
saints  or  deities  develop  into  personifications  of 
nature's  manifold  aspects.  The  Jain  sculptors 
and  painters  were  therefore  limited  to  a  very 
narrow  range  of  ideas :  they  had  no  rich  mythology 
or  lives  of  the  saints,  full  of  wonders  and  of  human 
interest,  to  illustrate ;  no  grand  conception  of 
nature's  moods — only  the  fixed,  immutable  pose  of 
the  ascetic  absorbed  in  contemplation.  Thus  Jain 
art,  as  regards  painting  and  sculpture,  deserves 
more  than  that  of  any  other  Hindu  sect  the  re- 
proach of  poverty  of  invention,  which  is  often, 
without  any  justification,  laid  upon  Indian  art  in 
general. 


I30  BUDDHIST   ART 

The  Buddhist  stupas  of  Bharhut,  Sanchi,  and 
Amaravati,  with  the  sculptured  rails  which  enclose 
their  procession-paths,  belong  to  the  Transition 
period  of  Indian  art,  dating  from  about  the  time 
of  Asoka,  or  the  third  century  B.C.,  down  to  the 
third  or  fourth  century  a.d.  After  that  time  the 
Buddhist  dynasties  of  Northern  India  succumbed 
to  their  Hindu  rivals,  and  Buddhism  itself  was 
gradually  absorbed  in  the  general  current  of  Hindu 
thought,  from  out  of  which  the  two  great  modern 
sects,  the  Vaishnavaites  and  Saivaites,  began  to 
emerge. 

In  India  Buddha  eventually  took  his  place  in 
the  Hindu  theogony  as  one  of  avatars  of  Vishnu, 
and  the  heroes  of  the  great  epics,  Krishna  and 
Rama,  came  forward  as  the  most  prominent  figures 
in  national  art  and  drama.  But  in  the  meantime 
the  artistic  traditions  of  Buddhism  had  found 
congenial  soil  in  China,  from  whence  they  spread 
to  Korea  and  Japan,  and  in  Ceylon.  The  disasters 
to  the  Buddhist  kingdoms  in  Northern  India  had 
also  stimulated  colonial  enterprise,  and  in  the  great 
colony  of  Java  Indian  Buddhist  art  flourished 
magnificently  until  the  conversion  of  the  islanders 
to  Islam. 

The  splendid  seven-terraced  shrine  of  B6r6- 
budtir,  which  has  escaped  Muhammadan  and 
Christian  iconoclasm,  contains  the  most  perfect 
series  of  Buddhist  historical  sculptures  now  exist- 
ing. Along  the  pilgrims'  procession-paths  on 
five  different  terraces  are  sculptured  one  hundred 


THE    ZENITH   OF   INDIAN   ART       131 

and  twenty  panels  illustrating  events  in  the  life 
of  Gautama,  and  a  similar  number  of  scenes  from 
the  jdtakas. 

The  best  sculptures  of  B6r6budtlr,  which 
belong  probably  to  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries 
A.D.,  reach  to  the  highest  point  of  Buddhist  plastic 
art.  Fergusson,  in  his  history  of  Indian  architec- 
ture, made  the  grievous  mistake  of  assigning  the 
zenith  of  Indian  sculpture  to  the  time  of  the  later 
Amaravati  reliefs,  or  about  the  third  century  a.d., 
and  this  cardinal  error  has  not  only  led  astray 
nearly  all  European  writers  in  Indian  art  ever 
since,  ^  but  has  formed  the  basis  on  which  Indian 
art  has  been  presented  to  the  art-student  by  the 
national  museums  of  Great  Britain. 

The  travesty  of  Indian  art-history  which  is 
thus  put  before  the  European  public  is  as  mis- 
leading as  it  would  be  for  the  museums  of  Tokio 
to  exhibit  Gothic  art  of  the  eleventh  century  as 
representing  the  zenith  of  medieval  art  in  Europe, 
and  for  Japanese  art-critics  to  write  of  European 
sculpture  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries 
as  unworthy  of  serious  consideration.  Not  only 
has  Indian  art-history  been  thus  horribly  distorted, 
but  the  whole  official  system  of  art-education  in 
India  has  been  based  upon  a  similar  misconcep- 
tion and  perversion  of  Indian  ideals. 

^  Mr.  Vincent  Smith  in  his  article  on  Indian  Archaeology  in  the 
latest  edition  of  the  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  says  that  after  the  third 
century  a.d.  there  is  little  Indian  sculpture  which  is  worthy  to  be  called 
art  \ 


132       THE   ZENITH    OF    INDIAN   ART 

The  art  of  India  up  to  the  fourth  century  a.d. 
was  purely  eclectic  and  transitional.  The  spirit 
of  Indian  thought  was  struggling  to  find  definite 
artistic  expression  in  sculpture  and  in  painting, 
but  the  form  of  expression  was  not  artistically 
perfected  until  about  the  seventh  or  eighth  centuries, 
when  most  of  the  great  sculpture  and  painting 
of  India  was  produced.  From  the  seventh  or 
eighth  to  the  fourteenth  century  was  the  great 
period  of  Indian  art,  corresponding  to  the  highest 
development  of  Gothic  art  in  Europe,  and  it  is 
by  the  achievements  of  this  epoch,  rather  than  by 
those  of  Mogul  Hindustan,  that  India's  place  in 
the  art-history  of  the  world  will  eventually  be 
resolved. 

With  one  important  exception,  the  Ajanta 
cave-paintings,^  practically  the  whole  of  the  art 
of  this  period  now  existent  belongs  to  sculpture 
or  architectural  design.  This  may  be  partly 
accounted  for  by  the  wholesale  destruction  of 
Indian  paintings  which  took  place  under  Muham- 
madan  rule,  especially  in  the  time  of  Aurangzib  ; 
it  being  much  easier  to  obliterate  paintings  than 
to  destroy  sculpture.  But  the  principal  reason  is 
probably  that  the  spirit  of  bhakti,  which  animated 

*  Mrs.  Herringham  and  M.  de  Goloubeff,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Indian  Society  of  Oriental  Art,  Calcutta,  are  now  engaged  in  making  a 
complete  artistic  survey  of  the  Ajanta  paintings,  for  want  of  which  I 
have  not  been  able  to  make  any  detailed  reference  to  them.  It  may 
therefore  be  hoped  that  before  long  the  Western  art-world  may  be 
enabled  to  appreciate  fully  these  fragmentary  but  very  precious  remains 
of  the  great  schools  of  Indian  painting. 


INDIAN    PAINTING  133 

all  the  great  art  of  the  Buddhist-Hindu  period, 
took  more  delight  in  sculpture  than  in  painting 
on  account  of  the  greater  labour  and  cost  involved 
in  it :  from  the  idea  that  the  greater  the  labour 
devoted  to  the  service  of  the  gods  the  greater 
would  be  the  merit  won  by  the  devotee. 

It  should  not  be  inferred  from  this  that  paint- 
ing, as  an  art,  never  reached  a  high  degree  of  perfec- 
tion in  India.  The  finest  of  the  Ajanta  paintings 
exhibit  an  amazing  technical  skill,  a  fertility  of 
invention,  and  a  power  of  expressing  high  religious 
ideals  unsurpassed  in  any  art.  Although,  after 
the  time  of  the  Buddhist  supremacy,  sculpture 
was  generally  preferred  to  painting  in  sacred 
buildings,  it  was  the  custom  in  every  royal  palace 
to  have  a  chitrasala,  or  hall  of  painting,  decorated 
with  frescoes.  ^  The  art  of  the  Mogul  miniature 
paintings,  some  of  which  are  as  fine  as  the  finest 
"  fine  art "  of  the  West,  was  not  entirely  an 
importation  into  India  from  Persia,  but  largely 
a  revival  of  the  art  of  the  Buddhist  and  Hindu 
court  painters. 

Nevertheless,  the  remains  of  Indian  religious 
painting  are  now  too  fragmentary  to  place  beside 
the  enormous  production  of  the  great  schools  of 
China  and  Japan ;  and  the  Mogul  court  painters, 
like  the  fine  art  of  modern  Europe,  represented  a 

^  The  custom  continued  until  modern  times,  but,  in  the  gradual 
extinction  of  all  artistic  culture  among  educated  Indians,  the  traditional 
chitrasala  has  given  place  to  collections  of  European  pictures,  generally 
of  the  most  painful  description. 
9^ 


134  SAIVAITE   ART 

distraction  and  amusement  for  cultured  dilettanti 
rather  than  a  great  national  art-tradition  like  that 
of  the  Far  East.  In  the  national  art  of  Asia, 
China  and  Japan  stand  as  supreme  in  their  schools 
of  painting  as  India  does  in  her  sculpture  and 
architecture. 

After  the  third  or  fourth  century  a.d.,  so  erro- 
neously considered  as  the  culminating  point  of 
Indian  sculpture,  the  Saivaites  began  to  add  a  new 
and  in  some  ways  a  unique  chapter  to  the  history 
of  Indian  art,  with  their  great  cave-temples  and 
sculptures  in  stone  and  bronze.  Like  the  Jains, 
the  Saivaites  were  originally  strict  followers  of  the 
ascetic  ideal :  Siva  being  the  personification  of 
the  meditative  life,  of  that  higher  knowledge  which 
is  the  most  direct  path  for  the  soul's  liberation. 
But,  so  long  as  the  Buddhists  maintained  their 
identity  as  a  separate  sect  of  Hinduism  their  won- 
derful activity  in  artistic  creation  seems  to  have 
stimulated  the  Saivaites  of  Northern  India  to 
emulate  the  achievements  of  their  rivals,  and  many 
of  the  finest  Indian  monuments  of  the  pre- 
Muhammadan  epoch — ^.^.the  temple  of  Elephanta 
and  that  of  Kailasa  at  Ellora — were  dedicated  to 
the  worship  of  Siva. 

It  would,  however,  be  quite  fallacious  to  at- 
tempt a  history  of  Indian  art  upon  a  rigid  sectarian 
classification.  The  different  currents  of  religious 
thought  represented  by  the  diverse  sects  of  Hin- 
duism intermingle  at  so  many  points  that  the 
only  clear  demarcations  in  Indian  art-history  are 


> 
a 

H 

< 

I-! 

Ah 


SAIVAITE   ART  135 

dynastic,  racial,  and  provincial  or  local.  Thus 
the  Buddhist  Mahayana  images  of  Nepal  often 
symbolise  the  same  ideas  as  the  Saivaite  sculptures 
of  Elephanta  and  Ellora  ;  and  it  is  often  difficult  to 
distinguish  between  Mahayana  sculptures  of  the 
eighthand  ninth  centuries  and  those  of  the  Saivaites. 
Though  Siva,  like  Vishnu,  is  reputed  to  have 
manifested  himself  in  human  incarnations,  the 
incidents  of  the  ascetic's  life  do  not  give  much 
scope  for  the  exercise  of  the  artist's  descriptive 
power,  and  most  of  the  great  groups  of  Saivaite 
sculpture  illustrate  myths  of  the  Hindu  cosmo- 
gony connected  with  Siva's  powers  either  as  the 
Creator  or  the  Destroyer  of  the  Universe,  or 
popular  stories  of  his  relations  with  the  Earth 
Mother,  as  represented  by  Uma  or  Parvati.  But 
after  Sankaracharya,  in  the  eighth  century  a.d., 
overcame  the  "Biiddhist  philosophers  in  contests 
of  dialectical  skill,  and  thus  established  the 
spiritual  ascendancy  of  the  Saivaite  cult,  the  Vedic 
objection  to  anthropomorphic  religious  symbolism 
seems  to  have  revived  in  Northern  India ;  and 
this,  together  with  the  influence  of  Muhammadan 
iconoclasm  during  Aurangzib's  long,  intolerant 
reign,  almost  reduced  Saivaite  iconography  in  the 
north  to  the  symbols  of  the  lingani  and  the  bull. 
The  prohibition  of  image-worship  on  the  part  of 
Saivaite  and  Jain  reformers  at  this  period  may 
have  been  dictated  by  motives  of  political  expedi- 
ency, in  order  to  avert  persecution  of  their  faith 
by  fanatical  followers  of  Islam. 


136  SAIVAITE   ART 

The  splendid  traditions  of  the  Saivaite  figure- 
sculptors  were  carried  down  to  modern  times  by 
the  bronze  workers  employed  in  the  temples  of 
Southern  India  and  Ceylon.  There  are  doubtless 
a  great  many  fine  Saivaite  bronzes  still  buried 
underground.  Many  are  hidden  away  in  temples 
into  which  Europeans  are  not  allowed  to  penetrate. 
Now  that  some  educated  Indians  are  beginning 
to  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  their  national 
art  we  may  expect  that  more  of  these  treasures 
will  be  brought  to  light,  and  treated  with  greater 
artistic  consideration  than  they  are  by  the  super- 
stitious guardians  of  the  temples.  The  degrading 
and  vulgar  modern  practice  of  dressing  up  temple 
images  with  gaudy  drapery,  like  children's  dolls, 
reduces  the  status  of  the  sculptor  to  that  of  a 
maker  of  lay  figures,  and  accounts  in  some  degree 
for  the  contempt  with  which  all  Indian  sculpture 
has  been  regarded  by  Anglo-Indians. 

Though  Saivaism  assimilated  a  great  deal  of 
the  humanistic  teaching  of  Gautama,  the  modern 
Vaishnavaites  are  more  entitled  to  be  considered 
the  artistic  heirs  of  Buddhism.  Gautama  himself, 
ignored  by  the  Saivaites,  is  recognised  as  one  of 
the  incarnations  of  Vishnu.  In  the  stories  of 
Rama-Chandra  and  of  Krishna,  also  incarnations 
of  Vishnu,  and  of  other  heroes  of  the  epics,  Vaish- 
navaite  art  finds  human  types  more  closely  related 
to  the  ethical  ideal  of  Buddhism  than  to  theascetic 
ideal  of  the  Saivaites. 

But  here  again  we  must  not  draw  such  dis- 


THE    EPICS  137 

tinctions  too  closely  :  for  the  Ramayana  and  the 
Mahabharata  are  as  much  the  common  property 
of  all  Hinduism  as  the  English  Bible  and  Shake- 
speare belong  to  all  English-speaking  people. 
The  Indian  epics  contain  a  portrait-gallery  of  ideal 
types  of  men  and  women  which  afford  to  every 
good  Hindu  the  highest  exemplars  of  moral  con- 
duct, and  every  Hindu  artist  an  inexhaustible 
mine  of  subject-matter.^ 

It  is  somewhat  surprising  for  the  student  of 
Indian  art  to  find  that  though  the  adventures 
of  Rama  and  Sita  and  the  exploits  of  the  Pandava 
heroes  have  such  a  deep  hold  upon  popular  imagi- 
nation, even  in  the  present  day,  and  though  the 
whole  text  of  the  great  epics  is  regarded  as  holy 
writ,  it  is  rarely  that  the  subjects  of  important 
sculptures  seem  to  have  been  taken  directly  from 
them  in  the  great  creative  period  of  Indian  art. 
The  finest  series  of  reliefs  illustrating  the  Rama- 
yana are  not  in  India  but  in  the  courtyard  of  a 
Vaishnavaite  temple  at  Prambanam,  in  Java :  they 
are  ascribed  to  about  the  eleventh  century  a.d. 
An  incident  in  the  Mahabharata  is  illustrated  in 
one  of  the  series  of  sculptures  at  Mamallapuram, 

^  Nothing  is  more  significant  of  the  general  aloofness  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  from  the  inner  consciousness  of  the  Indian  people  than  the  fact 
that,  while  most  educated  Indians  are  perfectly  familiar  with  the  Bible 
and  with  Shakespeare,  the  Mahabharata  has  not  as  yet  found  any  defi- 
nite place  in  English  literature.  In  spite  of  the  heroic  but  inadequate 
attempt  of  Protap  Chandra  Roy  to  render  it  into  English,  it  still,  for 
the  most  part,  remains  more  inaccessible  to  the  average  Englishman 
than  the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt. 


138  ROYAL   CHITRA-SALAS 

near  Madras ;  and  the  temple  of  Angkor  Vat,  in 
Kambodia,  has  reliefs  on  a  grand  scale  dealing 
with  other  events  of  the  great  war;  but,  with  these 
exceptions,  there  is  now  hardly  any  important 
Indian  sculpture  illustrating  the  epics.  Puranic 
literature  supplies  the  subjects  of  practically  all 
Hindu  religious  sculpture. 

I  think  that  the  explanation  of  this  is  that  the 
temples  were  held  to  be  dwelling-places  of  the 
devas,  and  consequently  the  figures  of  human 
beings  could  only  be  appropriately  represented  on 
the  exterior.  Thus  the  principal  sculptures  within 
the  sacred  precincts  related  exclusively  to  the 
divinities  who  were  worshipped  therein,  and  gener- 
ally to  events  which  took  place  in  the  paradise  of 
the  gods. 

From  various  references  in  Hindu  dramatic 
writings  we  may  conclude  that  the  history  of 
Rama  and  Sita  and  of  the  Pandava  heroes  from 
whom  many  of  the  Hindu  kings  claimed  descent 
were  frequently  illustrated  in  the  fresco  paintings 
of  the  royal  chitra-sdlas,  or  picture-halls,  which 
have  now  entirely  disappeared.  The  epic  of  Indian 
womanhood  and  the  Iliad  of  Asia  seem  now  to 
be  out  of  place  in  the  up-to-date  Indian  prince's 
picture-gallery  imported  wholesale  from  Europe, 
and  the  Indian  aristocracy  is  mostly  concerned  in 
obliterating  all  the  remaining  vestiges  of  Indian 
artistic  culture. 

The  more  modern  Vaishnavaite  literature  and 
art   are  centred    in   the   bhakti  cult  and  in  the 


THE   VAISHNAVAITES   AND   SAURAS    139 

events  of  Krishna's  early  life  at  Brindaban,  before 
he  became  the  spiritual  guide  and  champion  of 
the  Pandavas  in  the  great  war.  In  some  of  the 
popular  art  which  relates  to  this  aspect  of 
Vaishnavism  the  spiritual  significance  of  Krishna's 
relations  with  Radha  and  the  gopts  is  given 
a  grossly  material  interpretation.  But  it  would 
be  wrong  to  infer  that  the  obscenities  which 
occasionallydisfigureHindutemples  are  necessarily 
indicative  of  moral  depravity.  In  the  matter  of 
sexual  relationship  Indian  civilisation,  in  every 
stratum  of  society,  holds  up  a  standard  of  morality 
as  high  as  Europe  has  ever  done. 

The  splendid  sun-temples  of  Mudheri  in 
Gujerat  (Plate  XVII.)  and  of  Kanarak  in  Orissa 
belong  to  a  subsection  of  the  Vaishnava  cult,  still 
represented  by  the  Sauras,  or  those  who  worship 
Vishnu  in  his  manifestation  as  Stlrya-Narayana. 
The  former  dates  from  about  the  eleventh  century, 
and  is,  even  in  its  present  ruined  condition,  one  of 
the  noblest  monuments  of  Indian  architecture ;  the 
latter  belongs  to  the  thirteenth  century,  and  is 
distinguished  by  its  fine  sculpture,  especially  the 
two  grand  warhorses,  ^  and  the  elephants, 
Plate  XXIII.,  which  stand  in  front  of  it. 

The  sectarian  classification  of  Buddhist-Hindu 
art,  though  it  is  useful  as  indicating  roughly  the 
variety  of  subject-matter  in  sculpture  and  painting, 
and  to  some  extent  the  difference  of  architectural 
forms,  does  not  imply  any  divergence  in  artistic 

1  ••  Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XLIII. 


I40  THE    MOGULS 

ideals.  In  this  respect  Jain,  Buddhist,  Saivaite 
and  Vaishnavaite  merely  represent  different  aspects 
of  one  idea,  different  streams  of  thought  flowing 
in  one  direction  in  the  same  watershed.  In  the 
same  locality  and  of  the  same  date  Jain  or 
Buddhist,  Saivaite  or  Vaishnavaite  can  only  be 
distinguished  from  each  other  by  the  choice  of 
symbols,  and  then  often  with  difficulty. 
-^  The  political  supremacy  of  the  Moguls,  estab- 
lished by  Babar  in  1526,  brought  about  a  large 
readjustment  of  artistic  conditions  but  no  funda- 
mental change  in  artistic  ideals.  The  royal  palace, 
rather  than  the  temple  or  monastery,  became  more 
exclusively  the  centre  of  creative  art ;  for  the 
puritan  sentiment  of  Islam,  even  under  the  free- 
thinker Akbar,  would  not  concede  to  the  highest 
expression  of  art  any  but  material  aims  and  a 
strictly  secular  scope.  This  Philistine  influence 
reacted  on  the  religious  art  of  Hinduism,  and  no 
doubt  stimulated,  if  it  did  not  originate,  the 
propaganda  against  the  ritualistic  use  of  images 
started  by  Jain  and  Saivaite  religious  teachers. 
From  the  sixteenth  century  the  creative  impulse 
in  Hindu  art  began  to  diminish,  though  its 
technical  traditions  have  maintained  their  vitality 
down  to  modern  times. 

In  the  Muhammadan  Courts  there  was  no 
place  for  the  sculptor,  except  as  a  decorative 
craftsman  ;  but  in  architecture  Hindu  idealism 
received  a  fresh  impulse  through  dealing  with 
new  constructive  problems,  and  Islam  added  to 


THE    MOGULS  141 

its  prestige  by  the  magnificence  of  the  mosques 
built  with  the  aid  of  Jain  and  Hindu  temple  crafts- 
men. Indian  Saracenic  architecture  testifies  not 
so  much  to  the  creative  genius  of  the  Moguls  as 
to  their  capacity  for  assimilating  the  artistic  culture 
of  alien  subject  races.  Christianity  might  have 
advanced  much  more  rapidly  in  India  if  its 
leaders  had  not,  with  the  puritanical  intolerance 
of  Aurangzib,  refused  to  allow  the  genius  of 
Indian  art  to  glorify  the  Christian  Church,  and 
tried  to  propagate  the  beauty  of  an  Eastern 
faith  with  the  whitewashed  ugliness  of  Western 
formality. 

In  the  reigns  of  Akbar,  Jahangir,  and  Shah 
Jahan  the  court  painters  fulfilled  the  same  r61e 
as  they  had  done  under  the  former  Buddhist  and 
Hindu  rulers  ;  but  the  Mogul  Emperors  laid  no 
claim  to  a  divine  ancestry,  and  priestly  influence 
was  no  longer  supreme  in  the  state.  The  domi- 
nant themes  in  the  art  of  the  period  were  there- 
fore not  religious,  but  the  romance  of  love  and 
of  war,  the  legends  of  Musalman  and  Rajput 
chivalry,  the  pageantry  of  state  ceremonial,  and 
portraiture. 

Owing  to  the  presence  of  Persian  artists  at 
the  Mogul  Court,  European  critics  have  generally 
classified  all  the  painting  of  the  time  under  the 
name  of  Indo-Persian,  assuming,  as  so  many 
have  done  with  regard  to  early  Indian  Buddhist 
sculpture,  that  the  creative  impulse  in  Indian  art 
came  always  from  without  instead  of  from  within. 


142     INDIAN    AND    PERSIAN    PAINTING 

These  are  illogical  and  inartistic  assumptions. 
The  Persian  painters  at  Akbar's  Court  were 
neither  technically  nor  artistically  superior  to  the 
Hindus.  The  creative  stimulus  came  partly  from 
the  invigorating  atmosphere  of  Akbar's  Court,  and 
from  his  own  magnetic  personality.  Hindu  art 
had  been  cramped  by  the  rigid  ritualistic  pre- 
scriptions imposed  by  the  Brahmin  priests,  who 
were  not  artists,  like  many  of  the  Buddhist  monks, 
but  a  purely  literary  caste.  The  illiterate  but 
broad-minded  Akbar  gave  both  Musalman  and 
Hindu  artists  their  intellectual  and  spiritual 
freedom.  In  adapting  itself  to  the  new  social 
order  Indian  art  enlarged  its  boundaries  and 
renewed  its  former  vitality,  assimilating  the 
foreign  technical  traditions,  but  always  maintain- 
ing its  own  ideals.  Regarded  as  a  whole,  the 
Indian  school  of  painting  of  the  Mogul  epoch  is 
as  distinct  and  original  in  artistic  expression  as 
any  of  the  schools  of  Persia,  China,  or  Japan. 

With  the  accession  of  Aurangztb  the  fierce 
iconoclasm  of  the  first  Muhammadan  invaders  of 
Hindustan  was  renewed,  and  the  fine  arts,  includ- 
ing music,  were  placed  under  a  fanatical  priestly 
interdict,  more  detrimental  to  Indian  art  than  all 
the  asceticism  of  Hinduism.  In  modern  times  the 
influence  of  Western  "education,"  with  its  purely 
commercial  ideals,  has  been  even  more  depressing 
to  Indian  art  than  the  iconoclasm  of  Aurangzib. 
Educated  India  under  British  rule,  while  affecting 
to  exchange  its  own  culture  for  that  of  the  West, 


ANGLO-INDIA   AND   ART  143 

has  remained  entirely  aloof  from  those  vital  move- 
ments in  British  art  and  craft  which  in  the  last 
half-century  have  derived  so  much  impetus  from 
the  study  and  exploitation  of  oriental  art.  Anglo- 
Indian  departmentalism,  always  slow  to  move 
in  art  matters,  still  takes  refuge  in  British  Early 
Victorian  formularies,  and  the  theory  that  India 
has  never  shown  any  original  genius  for  sculpture 
or  painting  continues  to  produce  hopeless  confusion 
in  the  whole  conduct  of  art-education.  Under 
present  circumstances  it  would  be  far  better  if 
India  were  allowed  to  work  out  her  own  artistic 
salvation,  without  interference  from  the  State. 
Western  methods  of  education  have  opened  a  rift 
between  the  artistic  castes  and  the  "  educated " 
such  as  never  existed  in  any  previous  time  in 
Indian  history.  The  remedy  lies,  not  in  making 
Indian  artists  more  literate  in  the  European  sense, 
not  in  teaching  them  anatomy,  perspective,  and 
model-drawing,  nor  in  manufacturing  regulation 
pattern-books  according  to  Anglo-Indian  taste, 
but  in  making  the  literati,  educators  and  educated, 
conscious  of  the  deficiencies  of  their  own  education 
which  render  them  unable  to  appreciate  the  artistic 
wealth  lying  at  their  doors. 

For  behindall  this  intellectualandadministrative 
chaos  there  remains  in  India  a  native  living  tradi- 
tion of  art,  deep-rooted  in  the  ancient  culture  of 
Hinduism,  richer  and  more  full  of  strength  than 
all  the  eclectic  learning  of  the  modern  academies 
and  art-guilds  of  Europe ;   only  waiting  for  the 


144      THE    FUTURE    OF    INDIAN   ART 

spiritual  and  intellectual  quickening  which  will 
renew  its  old  creative  instinct.  The  new  impulse 
will  come,  as  Emerson  has  said,  not  at  the  call  of  a 
legislature :  it  will  come,  as  always,  unannounced, 
and  spring  up  between  the  feet  of  brave  and  earnest 
men. 

Even  now  the  signs  of  the  coming  renaissance 
are  not  wanting.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that 
India  will  wholly  succumb,  body  and  soul,  to  the 
materialism  of  modern  Europe ;  and,  seeing  how 
much  both  Asia  and  Europe  owe  to  Indian  culture, 
it  would  be  foolish  for  politicians  to  regard  the 
reassertion  of  Indian  idealism  with  suspicion  and 
distrust.  It  is  indeed  a  happy  augury  for  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  progress  of  humanity, 
and  for  the  ultimate  disappearance  of  those  differ- 
ences and  prejudices  which  make  the  gulf  between 
East  and  West. 


PART   II 

DESCRIPTION  OF  PLATES  XVIII 
TO  XXXII 


lO 


PLATES   XVIII   AND   XIX 

THE   GREAT    BAS-RELIEFS    AT    MAMALLAPURAM,    MADRAS, 
KNOWN    AS    "  ARJUNA'S    PENANCE  " 

The  great  group  of  Hindu  monuments  at  M^mallapuram, 
consisting  of  monolithic  temples,  caves,  and  bas-reliefs, 
contains  some  of  the  finest  examples  of  Indian  sculpture 
now  existing.  They  were  executed  under  the  auspices 
of  some  of  the  Pallava  kings  who  had  their  capital  at 
Conjeeveram  (Kanchi),  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  gradually  extended  their  power  so  that  from 
about  A.D.  625  to  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  they 
held  sway  over  the  greater  part  of  Southern  India.  It  is 
to  the  latter  period  that  these  sculptures  belong.  Many 
of  them  are  said  to  have  been  executed  in  the  reign  of 
Mahendravarman  I.  {circa  a.d.  600  to  625).^ 

The  bas-reliefs,  of  which  two  illustrations  are  given, 
are  carved  on  two  huge  granite  boulders  of  about  thirty 
feet  in  height  and  a  combined  length  of  about  ninety 
feet. 

According  to  popular  tradition,  the  subject  of  the 
sculptures  is  that  of  Arjuna  practising  austerities  in  order 
to  gain  the  arms  of  Indra,  as  recorded  in  the  Vana  Parva 
of  the  Mahibharata.  Though  it  is  uncertain  whether 
this  is  correct,  the  story  is  a  typical  one  for  illustrating 

*  Vincent  Smith's  "  Early  History  of  India,"  p.  425. 
147 


148  ARJUNA'S   QUEST 

Hindu  belief  in  the  virtue  of  ascetic  practices  for  gaining 
extraordinary  psychic  powers,  and  it  sufficiently  explains 
the  motif  o^ih^  sculptures. 

When  the  fateful  struggle  between  the  Pandavas  and 
Kauravas  was  impending,  Arjuna,  on  the  advice  of  his 
brother  Yudhisthira,  set  out  towards  Himavat  to  obtain 
the  celestial  weapons  guarded  by  Indra.  He  was  armed 
with  Krishna's  famous  bow,  Gandiva,  with  its  inexhaustible 
quivers,  and  had  learnt  from  Yudhisthira  a  mantra  of 
tremendous  power  for  controlling  the  forces  of  nature. 
By  virtue  of  the  spiritual  power  gained  by  ascetic  practices, 
Arjuna  sped  with  marvellous  swiftness,  and  reached  the 
sacred  mountain  in  one  day ;  but  at  the  approach  to 
Indra's  paradise  a  celestial  voice  commanded  him  to  stop. 

Looking  around  him,  he  saw  under  a  tree  an  emaci- 
ated ascetic  with  matted  locks,  who  reproached  him  for 
disturbing  his  peaceful  abode,  and  endeavoured  with 
smooth  words  to  persuade  him  to  throw  away  his  weapons. 
But  the  Pandava  hero  was  not  to  be  turned  from  his 
purpose,  even  when  the  ascetic  threw  off  his  disguise  and 
revealed  himself  as  Indra,  making  tempting  offers  if  he 
would  consent  to  remain  and  enjoy  the  happiness  of  the 
celestials. 

"  I  desire  not  the  regions  of  bliss,"  Arjuna  answered, 
"  nor  the  celestial  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  gods.  Shall 
I  desert  my  brothers  in  the  forest,  leaving  their  wrongs 
unavenged  and  the  foe  unvanquished,  to  be  scorned  for 
all  ages  by  the  whole  world  ?  " 

Moved  by  Arjuna's  constancy,  Indra  consented  to 
yield  to  him  the  celestial  arms  when  Siva,  the  highest  of 
all  the  gods,  should  deign  to  reveal  himself  to  him. 

Indra  then  disappeared  and  Arjuna  prepared  to  devote 
himself  to  the  rigid  austerities  of  Yoga  in  order  to  obtain 
the  desired  boon  from  Siva.    He  first  entered  a  mysterious 


ARJUNA'S   QUEST  149 

forest  full  of  wild  beasts  and  fearsome  monsters.  The 
celestial  drums  and  conches  thundered  above  him  ;  thick 
showers  of  flowers  fell  upon  the  earth,  and  Indra's  clouds 
darkened  the  sky.  Reaching  an  auspicious  spot  on  the 
banks  of  a  foaming  river,  "  echoing  with  the  notes  of 
swans,  peacocks,  and  cranes,"  he  laid  aside  his  armour 
and  weapons  and  began  the  fasting  and  meditation  which 
should  attract  the  attention  of  the  great  god,  Siva.  The 
first  month  he  subsisted  by  eating  fruits  at  intervals  of 
three  nights ;  next  he  increased  the  interval  of  fasting  to 
six  nights  ;  and  next  to  fourteen  days.  By  the  fourth 
month  he  began  to  exist  on  air  alone ;  standing  on  the 
tips  of  his  toes  with  arms  upraised.  The  tremendous 
energy  produced  by  his  mental  concentration  began  to 
disturb  the  cosmic  order,  and  all  the  great  sages  went  in 
agitation  to  complain  to  Siva. 

Mahadeva  reassured  them  by  saying  that  Arjuna's 
desire  was  not  prompted  by  any  impiety,  and  forthwith 
assuming  the  disguise  of  a  hunter,  he  took  up  his  bow  and 
arrow,  and,  followed  by  his  consort  Uma  and  thousands  of 
celestials  in  similar  disguise,  the  great  god  descended  the 
slopes  of  Himavat  to  test  the  courage  of  the  hero.  As 
they  approached  the  whole  forest  was  illumined  with 
heavenly  light,  a  solemn  stillness  pervaded  the  place,  the 
songs  of  birds  were  hushed,  and  the  rivers  ceased  to 
flow. 

Then  Siva,  by  the  power  of  illusion,  caused  a  demon  in 
the  form  of  a  wild  boar  to  pass  in  front  of  Arjuna,  who 
fitted  a  shaft  to  his  bow  to  slay  it,  undeterred  by  the 
commanding  voice  of  the  divine  hunter  claiming  it  as  his 
own  prize.  The  boar  fell  struck  at  the  same  instant  by 
the  fiery  shafts  of  Arjuna,  and  by  those  of  Siva.  An  angry 
dispute  arose  between  the  rival  hunters,  ending  in  a 
terrific  combat,  in  which  Arjuna  was  at  last  struck  down 
10* 


I50  ARJUNA'S    QUEST 

senseless.  Soon  regaining  consciousness,  he  prostrated 
himself  in  worship  at  Siva's  feet,  who,  revealing  himself 
in  his  divine  splendour,  praised  him  for  his  valour,  and 
promised  to  bestow  upon  him  an  irresistible  weapon  with 
which  he  should  overcome  all  his  foes. 

Mahadeva,  having  instructed  Arjuna  in  the  use  of 
the  celestial  arms,  disappeared  from  his  sight,  like  the 
setting  sun  in  a  clear  sky.  Arjuna,  kneeling  in  adoration 
exclaimed,  "  Happy  indeed  am  I,  and  greatly  favoured 
for  I  have  beheld  and  touched  with  my  hand  the  three- 
eyed  Hara,  the  wielder  of  the  Pinaka,  and  obtained  this 
boon  !  My  enemies  are  already  vanquished  !  My  pur- 
pose is  achieved ! " 

Then  Varuna,  the  god  of  waters,  with  all  his  attend- 
ant deities ;  the  river  goddesses  ;  the  Nagas,  snake-gods  ; 
the  Daityas  and  Sadhyas  ;  came  to  see  the  mighty  hero 
who  had  fought  with  Mahadeva  himself  There  came 
also  Kuvera,  the  lord  of  wealth,  seated  on  a  splendid 
car  ;  Yama,  the  judge  of  the  nether  world,  with  mace  in 
hand;  and  Indra,  too^-with  his  Queen,  mounted  on  the 
celestial  elephant,!  Airavata^^j.- white  umbrella  over  his 
head,  looking  like  thcfnoon  amid  fleecy  clouds.  They 
also  bestowed  upon  Arjuna  various  weapons  of  tremen- 
dous power ;  Yama,  his  mace ;  Varuna,  his  noose ; 
Kuvera,  the  magic  Antardhana.  Finally,  taking  Arjuna 
in  his  shining  car,  Indra  bore  him  aloft  to  his  heavenly 
city,  Amaravati,  where,  with  benedictions  from  all  the 
devas  he  received  from  the  hands  of  the  Rain-god  his 
thunderbolt  and  the  lightnings  of  heaven. 

At  Indra's  command  he  remained  there  for  five 
years,  learning  from  Chitrasena  the  divine  arts  of  music, 
singing,  and  dancing — accomplishments  which  he  found 
very  useful  in  his  subsequent  adventures  among  his 
fellow-mortals. 


PLATE   XIX 


THE   GREAT   BAS-RELIEF   AT   MAMALLAPURAM  :    CENTRAL   PART 
(From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Nicholas  &  Co  ,  Madras) 


THE   mAmALLAPURAM  SCULPTURES    151 

The  M^mallapuram  sculptures  do  not  follow  very 
closely  the  Mahibharata  version  of  the  story,  but  it  should 
be  remembered  that  there  must  have  been  many  local 
variants  of  it.  On  the  left-hand  rock,  the  sculptures  of 
which  remain  half  finished,  the  emaciated  figure,  supposed 
to  be  Arjuna,  is  seen  practising  his  austerities,  standing 
on  one  leg  with  his  arms  raised  over  his  head.  The 
figure  of  a  four-armed  deity  standing  by  him,  armed  with 
a  huge  mace  and  attended  by  dwarfs,  seems  to  be  that 
of  Siva.  Immediately  below  the  supposed  figure  of 
Arjuna  there  is  a  small  temple  of  Vishnu,  at  the  base  of 
which  a  number  of  devotees  are  grouped.  The  upper  part 
of  both  rocks  is  covered  with  a  great  crowd  of  celestials, 
gods,  and  sages ;  the  Gandharvas,  the  heavenly  musicians 
with  bird-like  legs,  and  various  four-footed  denizens  of 
the  Hindu  Olympus  are  hastening  to  watch  the  wonder- 
ful penance. 

The  right-hand  rock  is  distinguished  by  the  mag- 
nificent group  of  elephants,  Indra's  noble  beasts,  which 
are  very  realistically  treated.  The  foremost  tusker,  which 
gives  shelter  to  a  delightful  group  of  baby  elephants^ 
stands  gravely  watching  Arjuna,  while  the  female  ii 
patiently  waits  her  turn  behind  him. 

The  cleft  between  the  rocks  is  skilfully  used  to  ^ftow 
a  Naga  and  Nagini,  and  other  snake-deities,  as  coming 
up  from  the  depths  of  ocean,  drawn  by  the  ascetic's 
magnetic  power,  to  pay  him  homage. 


PLATE   XX 

A    RELIEF    FROM    MAMALLAPURAM — VISHNU    SUPPORTING 
THE    UNIVERSE 

Plate  XX.,  a  very  characteristic  example  of  the  Hindu 
artist's  treatment  of  Puranic  allegory,  is  one  of  the  most 
impressive  and  powerful  of  the  Mamallapuram  group  of 
sculptures. 

Vishnu  is  here  represented  as  the  all-pervading  Soul 
of  the  Universe,  upholding  the  heavens  (symbolised  by 
the  curved  cornice  of  the  Dravidian  temple)  with  one 
arm,  and  filling  space  with  all  the  attributes  of  his  glory. 
Seated  at  his  feet  are  four  munis,  or  genii,  the  guardians 
of  his  paradise  Vaikuntha,  symbolising  the  four  quarters 
of  the  earth. 

Vishnu  himself,  in  his  material  aspect,  stands  for  the 
sun  in  its  midday  splendour,  as  representing  the  prin- 
ciple of  all  life.  On  the  right  and  left  are  smaller 
figures  of  Brahma  and  Siva  on  their  heavenly  lotus- 
thrones  as  symbols  of  the  sun's  rising  and  setting.  The 
"  strides  of  Vishnu,"  or  the  apparent  movement  of  the 
sun  across  the  heavens,  are  suggested  by  the  upraised 
leg  and  the  outstretched  finger  of  one  hand  which  Siva 
is  touching. 

The  figure  with  a  boar's  head  on  the  right  of 
Vishnu's   head  is  the  Varaha-avatara,   or  boar-incarna- 

152 


I 


THE   ATTRIBUTES   OF   VISHNU       153 

tion,  in  which  form  Vishnu  raised  the  earth  above  the 
Flood. 

The  spiritual  signification  of  the  various  attributes 
displayed  by  Vishnu  are  thus  explained  in  the  Puranas  : 
The  Kaustubha  gem  which  he  wears  in  his  necklace  is  the 
pure  Soul  of  the  World,  undefiled  and  void  of  qualities. 
The  chief  principle  of  things  (Pradhana)  is  seated  on  the 
Eternal  in  the  Sri-vatsa  mark,  a  curl  on  the  breast. 

The  principle  of  consciousness  (Ahamkara)^  in  its 
twofold  division,  into  organs  of  senses  and  rudimentary 
unconscious  elements,  is  symbolised  by  the  famous  bow 
Gandiva,  used  by  Arjuna  in  the  Great  War  (here  held 
by  Vishnu  in  his  bent  left  arm),  and  by  the  spiral  conch 
shell,  the  sound  of  which  reverberates  throughout  the 
whole  universe.'  The  shafts  shot  from  the  bow  {i.e.  the 
sun's  rays)  represent  the  faculties  of  action  and  per- 
ception. The  bright  sword,  wielded  by  the  right  arm,  is 
holy  wisdom,  concealed  at  times  in  the  scabbard  of 
ignorance.  On  the  right  side,  also,  Vishnu  wields  his 
mace,  which  is  the  power  of  the  intellect,  and  the  discus, 
which  is  the  mind,  whose  thoughts,  like  the  weapon,  fly 
swifter  than  the  winds.  (The  allegorical  significance  of 
the  remaining  symbol,  the  shield  held  by  the  left  arm,  is 
not  explained  in  the  Vishnu  Purana.     It  seems  to  be 

^  Ahamkara  =  the  principle  of  individual  existence,  that  which  ap- 
propriates perceptions,  and  on  which  depends  the  notions,  I  think,  I 
am.  The  three  modifications  of  Ahamkara  are  (i)  Vaikarika,  (2) 
Taijasa,  and  (3)  Bhutadi,  corresponding  to  the  three  primordial  gunas^ 
or  qualities — sattvam,  rajas,  and  tamas.  The  sattvik  form  of  con- 
sciousness produces  the  senses,  and  the  tamasik  the  five  elemental 
rudiments — ether,  wind  or  air,  fire  or  light,  water,  and  earth.  The 
Taijasa  form  of  consciousness  is  the  energic  principle,  causing  the 
other  two,  which  are  inert  by  themselves,  to  act.  Hence  Ahamkara  is 
described  as  having  a  "  twofold  division." 

^  The  vibration  of  the  rudimentary  elements  is  regarded  as  the 
material  creative  force.     The  same  idea  is  represented  by  Siva's  drum. 


154   THE  mAmALLAPURAM  SCULPTURES 

about  to  cover  the  descending  figure  whose  movement 
symbolises  the  setting  of  the  sun,  and  thus  it  may  be 
taken  to  represent  both  the  darkness  of  night  and  Mayi, 
the  power  of  illusion,  or  the  veil  of  phenomenal  existence 
by  which  the  Supreme  Being  conceals  His  real  nature.) 
His  necklace  is  composed  of  the  five  precious  gems, 
pearl,  ruby,  emerald,  sapphire,  and  diamond,  which  re- 
present the  five  elemental  rudiments  (see  note,  p.  153). 

Artists  of  every  school  will  recognise  the  splendid 
vigour  and  imaginative  power  with  which  the  unknown 
sculptor  has  carved  this  striking  composition  on  the  face 
of  the  living  granite  rock.  The  bold  generalisation  of 
execution  is  quite  free  from  the  over-elaboration  from 
which  later  Indian  sculpture  sometimes  suffers.  The 
figure  of  the  sun-god  in  his  midday  glory,  the  pillar  of 
the  heavens  whose  glowing  light  pervades  all  space,  is  a 
grand  allegorical  conception  worthy  of  a  Dante  or  Milton. 
The  stately  uprightness  of  the  body  of  the  Deity,  echoed 
by  the  lines  of  the  mighty  bow  and  sword  and  by  the 
slightly  varied  attitudes  of  the  four  genii  grouped  in 
massive  relief  at  the  base,  contrast  with  telling  ef^ct 
against  the  vigorous  movement  of  the  outstretched  arms, 
forming  a  radiant  halo  behind  the  figure  :  while  the 
ascending  and  descending  movement  of  the  smaller 
figures  on  the  right  and  left  balances  the  whole  composi- 
tion in  lower  planes  of  relief,  which  finely  symbolise  the 
gradual  dawn  and  close  of  day  at  the  sun's  rising  and 
setting.  The  extended  movement  of  the  left  leg  may 
easily  provoke  Philistine  ridicule ;  but  the  critic  whose 
outlook  is  not  too  much  narrowed  by  the  aesthetic  con- 
ventions of  modern  academic  Europe  must  admit  that 
the  reverential  feeling  of  the  sculptor  fully  justifies  the 
temerity  which  might  so  easily  have  proved  disastrous  to 
an  artist  of  lesser  power. 


PLATE   XXI 

LAKSHMt,    OR    SRt,    ARISING    FROM    THE    SEA   OF    MILK A 

RELIEF    FROM    mAmALLAPURAM    (cAVE    XXv) 

The  story  of  Lakshmi,  or  Sri,  the  consort,  or  sakti,  of 
Vishnu — representing  fertility  and  earthly  prosperity — 
arising  from  the  Cosmic  Ocean  when  churned  by  the 
gods  and  asuras,  is  given  in  the  text,  pp.  60-3.  The 
gracious  goddess,  radiant  with  beauty,  rose  from  the 
waves,  seated  on  a  full-blown  lotus-flower,  attended  by 
Ganga  and  other  river-deities.  Indra's  elephants,  the 
mighty  monsoon  clouds  which  refresh  the  parched  plains, 
bring  their  precious  waters  in  golden  vessels,  and  pour 
them  over  her,  the  Queen  of  the  Universe. 

Like  all  the  Mimallapuram  reliefs,  the  subject  is 
treated  with  a  freshness  and  directness  which  will  appeal 
to  European  artists  more  than  the  elaborate,  ritualistic 
formalism  of  some  later  Hindu  sculpture.  It  is  Indian 
art  of  the  great  Hindu  epoch,  strong,  free,  and  full  of 
creative  vigour. 

The  old-world  story  lends  itself  to  such  a  treatment. 
Like  the  subjects  of  Kalidasa's  masterpieces,  Sakuntala 
and  the  Meghaduta,  it  strikes  one  of  those  primitive 
chords  of  human  feeling  on  which  all  the  great  dramatists 
prefer  to  play.  Lakshmi,  Mother  Nature,  true  woman 
and  goddess  most  divine,  is  represented  in  the  supreme 

155 


156  LAKSHM! 

moment  when,  rising  from  the  waves  on  her  lotus-throne, 
she  gazes  with  undisguised  rapture  and  wonderment 
upon  the  apparition  of  Vishnu  in  all  his  splendour  before 
her.  There  is  a  fine  inspiration,  a  touch  of  the  eternal 
feminine,  in  her  simple,  spontaneous  gesture,  full  of 
adoration  for  her  divine  spouse  as  she  prepares  to  throw 
herself  upon  his  breast.  The  reverential  mien  of  the 
attendant  river-goddesses  at  her  side  is  simply  and 
charmingly  expressed  ;  and  the  colossal  heads  of  Indra's 
elephants,  rendered  with  consummate  craftsmanship, 
make  an  imposing  canopy  for  the  whole  group. 


I 


PLATE   XXI 


LAKSUMI    ARISING    FROM   THE   SEA   OF   MILK,    MAMALLAPURAM 


PLATES   XXII    AND   XXIII 

SCULPTURE  OF  A  BULL  IN   KRISHNA'S  MANDAPAM,  MAMALLA- 

PURAM TWO     ELEPHANTS    IN    FRONT    OF    THE     St>RYA 

TEMPLE    AT    KANARAK 

The  grand  monumental  bull  carved  in  the  shrine  known 
as  Krishna's  Mandapain  at  Mamallapuram  is  one  of  a 
group  illustrating  the  story  of  Krishna's  exploit  in  lifting 
up  the  mountain  Govardhana  to  protect  Nanda  and  his 
cattle  from  the  torrents  of  rain  poured  down  by  the 
wrath  of  Indra.  Like  the  elephants  in  the  great  bas- 
relief  known  as  Arjuna's  penance  (Plate  XVIII.)  it  is 
frankly  realistic  in  treatment ;  yet  not  without  the  ideal 
feeling  of  classic  art  in  its  masterly  generalisation  of 
fact. 

Nandi,  a  milk-white  bull,  is  the  name  of  Siva's 
vehicle,  which  is  a  symbol  both  of  the  deity's  generative 
power  and  of  dharma,  righteousness,  or  the  whole  duty 
of  the  Hindu.  The  latter  attribute  is  derived  from  the 
fact  that  the  bull  carried  the  wood  for  the  sacrificial  fire, 
and  was  one  of  the  principal  victims. 

With  this  sculpture  we  may  compare  the  two  ele- 
phants in  front  of  the  famous  sun-temple  at  Kanarak,  in 
Orissa  (Plate  XXIII.),  which  belongs  to  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  They  are  companion  sculptures  to 
the  magnificent   horse  and  warrior  which   I   have  illus- 

157 


o 


158  mAmallapuram  and  kanArak 

trated  in  a  previous  volume.*  In  such  grand  works  as 
these,  comparable  with  the  finest  sculptures  of  the  West, 
we  can  find  sufficient  refutation  of  the  baseless  imputa- 
tion so  often  brought  against  Hindu  artists  that  they  are 
no  lovers  of  nature,  and  lack  the  power  of  truthful  inter- 
pretation of  it. 

Because  his  deep  religious  instinct  inspires  the  Hindu 
always  to  seek  in  every  aspect  of  nature  a  symbol  of 
worship  and  an  attribute  of  the  divine,  rather  than  the 
means  of  intellectual  distraction  or  idle  amusement,  it 
often  seems  to  the  Western  materialist  that  he  misses 
the  purpose  of  art,  and  is  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
highest  aesthetic.  It  would  be  more  true  to  say  that  this 
is  the  spirit  in  which  all  the  greatest  works  of  art  have 
been  conceived,  and  it  is  just  that  spirit,  still  surviving 
in  the  East,  which  is  needed  to  give  a  new  vital  impulse 
to  art  in  modern  Europe.  There  is  hardly  a  form  or 
symbol  in  Hindu  art,  from  the  gods  of  its  pantheon  to 
the  primitive  jewellery  of  the  peasant,  which  has  not  its 
ultimate  derivation  in  some  aspect  of  nature-worship.  It 
is  true  that  the  adoration  is  addressed  not  directly  to 
nature,  or  to  the  symbol  which  expresses  it,  but  to  the 
all-pervading  spirit  which  is  behind  it.  But  the  feeling 
for  beauty  is  everywhere  revealed,  even  in  the  epithets 
bestowed  upon  the  gods,  and  in  the  names  of  ornaments 
and  oatterns. 

How  "  the  blue-throated,  moon-crested  Siva"  recalls 
the  ethereal  beauty  of  the  Himalayan  peaks,  with  the 
band  of  transparent  violet-blue  just  below  the  snow-cap  ; 
and  what  poetic  suggestions  underlie  the  names  of  the 
finest  Dacca  muslins — "  running  water,"  "  evening  dew," 
and  "  woven  air  "  ! 

Is  there  no  love  of  nature  in  the  reverence  for  all 

1  "Indian  Sculpture  and  Painting,"  Plate  XLIII. 


THE    HINDU    LOVE   OF   NATURE      159 

living  things,  great  and  small,  which  is  enjoined  as  a 
religious  duty  on  every  Hindu  ?  Do  the  people  who 
bestow  garlands  on  every  honoured  guest,  who  worship 
sacred  trees,  and  bring  flowers  for  their  daily  offerings  to 
the  gods,  to  whom  the  forest  is  a  temple  and  every 
wooded  hill-top  an  altar,  not  love  trees  and  flowers  ? 
If  the  Indian  continually  chooses  some  glorious  prospect 
of  mountain,  sea,  or  plain  as  a  fitting  place  of  pilgrimage, 
and  in  passionate  devotion  builds  or  carves  in  the  living 
rock  a  shrine  for  the  image  of  Him  who  abides  in  every- 
thinof — has  he  a  lower  aesthetic  sense  than  the  materialist 
who  climbs  the  mountain-top  to  see  the  sunrise,  and 
enjoy  his  breakfast  better  ? 

Did  the  painters  of  Ajanta  not  love  the  nature  and 
the  teeming  life  of  their  native  land  which  they  depicted 
with  such  marvellous  skill  ?  Had  the  sculptors  of  Ellora 
who  transformed  the  rocky  hill-scarp  with  their  mystic 
visions  of  Siva's  Himalayan  paradise  (Plate  XVI.)  less 
delight  in  beauty  than  the  modern  tourist  with  his  camera, 
and  the  painter  with  his  sketch-book  ? 

The  book-learned  Western  critic  starts  with  an 
a  priori  conviction  that,  because  Buddhist  and  Hindu 
teachers  have  always  regarded  the  ascetic  life  as  the 
highest  ideal  and  the  shortest  road  to  salvation,  therefore 
there  is  ingrained  in  Indian  thought  generally  a  dislike 
and  distrust  of  nature,  incompatible  with  the  aims  of  art, 
which  have  always  warped  the  mind  and  paralysed  the 
hand  of  the  Indian  artist,  except  when  he  was  influenced 
by  Hellenic  traditions.  This  appears  to  be  the  view  of 
Sir  George  Birdwood,  who  declares  that  "sculpture  and 
painting,  as  fine  arts,  are  unknown  in  India."  ^  He  fails 
to  find  in  Indian  art  any  examples  of  the  "  unfettered  and 

'  "  Industrial  Arts  of  India  "  (Handbook  of  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum),  part  i.  p.  125. 


i6o     THE    HINDU    LOVE   OF    NATURE 

impassioned  realisation  of  the  ideals  within  us,  by  the 
things  without  us  " ;  and  recently,  in  a  violent  denuncia- 
tion of  Indian  sculpture  in  general,  he  characterised  the 
Indian  conception  of  Buddha  as  "  a  senseless  similitude 
.  .  .  vacuously  squinting  down  its  nose  to  its  thumbs  and 
knees  and  toes.  A  boiled  suet  pudding  would  serve 
equally  well  as  a  symbol  of  passionless  purity  and  serenity 
of  soul."  ^  The  illustrations  I  have  given  here  and  else- 
where of  Hindu  sculpture  appear  in  his  eyes  "  unshapely, 
unsightly,  and  portentous  ...  for  the  most  part  mecha- 
nical bronzes  and  brasses  and  the  merest  Brummagem." 

It  is  a  misfortune  for  India  that  those  who  come 
forward  as  interpreters  of  her  art  to  the  West  should  be 
so  constitutionally  incapable  of  appreciating  its  highest 
ideals.  It  seems  to  me  that  those  who  refuse  to  recog- 
nise the  intense  love  of  nature  with  which  Hindu  thought 
is  penetrated  must  miss  entirely  the  beauty  of  the  great 
Hindu  poets,  of  Valmiki  and  Kalidasa,  as  well  as  the 
beauty  of  Hindu  art.  For  all  Hindu  poetry,  music,  and 
art  reveal  the  profound  insight  into  nature  and  the 
abiding  love  for  it  which  have  dominated  Indian  thought 
throughout  its  history.  They  seem,  indeed,  sometimes 
to  strike  notes  too  high  and  too  deep  for  Western  ears  to 
hear  ;  but  this  wider  range  of  sense-perception  is  the 
special  gift  of  the  artist,  poet,  and  musician. 

The  idea  that  the  soul's  salvation  can  be  more 
speedily  won  by  an  ascetic  life  is,  after  all,  no  peculiarity 
of  Hinduism,  and  the  ascetic  ideal  had  no  more  power  to 
repress  the  free  development  of  the  fine  arts  in  India 
than  the  monasticism  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  in  Europe. 
Those  who  pursued  that  ideal  in  daily  life  were  only  the 
smallest  fraction  of  the  whole  population  ;  generally  those 
whom  misfortune,  or  some  great  loss  or  grief,  had  driven 
^  Journal  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Arts y  February  1910. 


ASCETICISM   AND   ART  i6i 

to  seek  consolation  in  retirement  from  the  world.  The 
respect  with  which  they  were  treated  did  not  prevent 
others  from  enjoying  the  amenities  of  life  in  full.  Just 
as  in  medieval  Europe  the  religious  impulse  which 
dominated  the  masses  sought  active  expression  in  artistic 
works,  in  the  building  and  adornment  of  innumerable 
temples,  monasteries,  rest-houses  for  pilgrims,  bathing 
tanks,  etc.,  to  which  they  contributed,  some  by  gifts  of 
kind  or  money,  some  by  their  labour,  some  by  dedicating 
their  lives  to  the  temple  service.  The  extraordinary 
productiveness  of  Hindu  art  in  its  great  creative  period 
is  sufficient  in  itself  to  prove  a  deep  devotion  to  the  study 
of  nature,  for  creative  art  can  no  more  proceed  from 
distrust  or  hatred  of  nature  than  music  can  proceed  from 
an  abhorrence  of  sound. 

All  art  which  .is  not  purely  eclectic  and  academic 
represents  the  attempt  to  probe  into  nature's  secrets  and 
relate  them  to  human  life  and  work.  Thus  all  art  which 
is  vital  and  creative  is  as  closely  related  to  the  study  of 
nature  as  all  true  science  and  philosophy  must  always  be. 

"Puranic"  art,  or  Indian  Gothic,  which  Sir  George 
Bird  wood  condemns  wholesale,  is  Hindu  science  and 
philosophy  allegorically  interpreted  by  the  great  masters 
of  India,  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  great  musicians 
of  modern  Europe  have  used  popular  folk-music  as  the 
basis  of  musical  drama.  Puranic  art  is  the  idiomatic  art 
of  India,  which  hardly  became  truly  Indian  until  it 
became  Puranic.  If  it  seems  strange  to  Western 
minds,  we  should  always  remember  that  it  was  an  art 
language  perfectly  intelligible  to  the  people  to  whom  it 
was  addressed.  It  is  the  complete  expression  of  the 
Indian  consciousness  at  the  height  of  its  greatest  intel- 
lectual, literary,  and  artistic  activity  ;  and  for  any  critic 
to  affect  to  despise  it  is  simply  to  exhibit  his  incapacity 
II 


i62  PURANIC   ART 

for  approaching   Indian  art   from   the   Indian    point  of 
view. 

It  is  within  the  province  of  a  critic  to  ridicule  the 
work  of  an  individual,  of  a  clique,  or  of  a  school ;  but  it 
is  presumption  to  condemn  whole  centuries  of  creative 
art — centuries  which  are  mighty  landmarks  in  the  history 
of  a  great  civilisation.  The  art  of  individuals  or  of 
cliques  may  be  perverse,  but  the  art  of  a  whole  people 
cannot  be  wrong.  It  is  a  revelation  of  themselves — a 
part  of  the  process  of  their  spiritual  evolution,  and  it 
cannot  be  wise  for  the  nation  which  rules  India  to  allow 
Indian  art  to  be  either  ignored  or  misrepresented  in  its 
public  museums. 

According  to  Sir  George  Birdwood  and  most  other 
Anglo-Indian  writers,  it  was  first  the  Greeks  and  after- 
wards the  Muhammadans  who  infused  into  the  Indian 
mind  that  love  of  nature  which  is  necessary  for  the 
development  of  "fine  art" — a  most  extraordinary  mis- 
reading of  Indian  art-history.  There  is  no  phase  of 
Indian  art  less  free  and  spontaneous  than  the  decadent 
work  of  the  Gandhara  sculptors,  and  no  Hindu  canon 
was  ever  so  blighting  in  its  effect  on  the  higher  develop- 
ment of  art,  or  so  significant  of  a  distrust  and  hatred  of 
nature,  as  the  ascetic  law  of  Islam  which  forbade  the 
representation  of  any  living  creature.  Not  until  the 
rigour  of  that  law  was  relaxed,  when  Islam  became 
inspired  by  the  nature-loving  traditions  of  China  and 
Hindustan,  did  Saracenic  art  rise  to  greatness.  Both 
Greeks  and  Hindus  were  lovers  of  beauty.  The  former 
loved  it  for  its  own  sake — for  the  refinement  and  abun- 
dance of  joy  which  it  brings  into  life  ;  the  latter  for  the 
intimation  it  gives  of  a  higher  life  than  this — for  life,  to 
the  Hindu  artist,  had  a  more  profound  significance  than 
it  had  to  the  Greek.    The  sculptors  who  carved  the  great 


X 


GREEKS   AND    HINDUS  163 

bull  at  Mimallapuram  and  the  elephants  at  Kandrak  were 
as  perfect  masters  of  their  art  as  the  Greeks.  Both  the 
realism  of  such  works  as  these  and  the  idealism  of  the 
sublime  Buddha  at  Anuradhapura,  of  the  four-armed  Siva 
of  the  Madras  Museum  (Plates  VII.  and  VIII.),  or  of  the 
four-headed  Brahm^  at  Leyden  (Plate  VI.),  proceed  from 
a  reverent  and  profound  study  of  nature,  and  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  could  have  been  achieved  without  it. 


PLATE   XXIV 

BAS-RELIEF  FROM    THE  ENTRANCE    TO  CAVE  XIX   AT    AJANTA 

Students  of  Indian  art  are  accustomed  to  think  of  the 
Ajanta  caves  as  representing  the  great  epoch  of  Buddhist 
painting,  but  they  also  furnish  some  of  the  most  perfect 
examples  of  Indian  sculpture  and  architectural  design.. 
Among  them  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  anything  to 
surpass  this  exquisite  sculptured  group  by  the  entrance 
of  the  most  splendid  of  the  chaitya-halls,  known  as 
No.  XIX. 

A  Nagaraja  is  sitting  in  the  pose  known  as  that  of 
kingly  ease,  his  head  canopied  by  a  great  seven-headed 
cobra.  His  Queen,  with  a  single  cobra  over  her  head 
and  holding  a  lotus-flower  in  her  left  hand,  is  seated  by 
his  side ;  a  female  attendant  stands  on  his  right.  The 
King  and  Queen  are  draped  in  diaphanous  garments,  the 
ends  of  which  fall  over  the.  roughly  hewn  seat.  Very 
little  is  known  of  these  Naga  people,  serpent-worshippers 
converted  to  Buddhism,  who  figure  so  frequently  in  the 
paintings  and  sculptures  of  Ajanta,  Amaravati,  and 
elsewhere.  They  adopted  the  hooded  serpent  for  their 
tribal  ensign.  Naga  dynasties,  says  Fergusson,  ruled  in 
various  parts  of  Central  India  and  Rajputana  from  the 
seventh  century  b.c.  till  at  least  the  fourth  century  a.d. 
There  were  also  mythical   Nigd  folk,   half-human  and 

164 


PLATE   XXIV 


BAS-REIJEF,    CAVE   XIX,    AJANTA 


A   NAGARAJA   at   AJANTA  165 

half-serpentine  in  form,  who  dwelt  in  the  depths  of  rivers, 
lakes,  and  seas,  and  inhabited  Pat^la,  the  regions  below 
the  earth.  They  were  skilled  in  all  magical  arts,  and 
their  women  were  of  surpassing  loveliness.  Many  are 
the  legends  of  their  love  for  mortals,  and  how  they  lured 
them  to  their  wondrous  palaces  beneath  the  waters 
glittering  with  crystal  and  gems. 

Something  of  this  feeling  of  mystery  is  reflected  in 
this  Ajanta  sculpture,  and  something  of  the  devotional 
spirit  of  Francesca's  or  Fra  Angelico's  paintings.  The 
three  figures  are  dominated  by  an  overpowering  sense  of 
other-worldliness  which  fills  body  and  soul  and  lifts  them 
out  of  themselves.  They  might  perhaps  be  listening  in 
rapt  attention  to  the  chanting  of  the  monks  within  the 
chaitya-hall,  seeming  to  them  like  echoes  of  a  celestial 
choir.  Or  perhaps  the  sound  of  many  waters  coming  from 
the  ravine  strikes  their  ears  like  the  voice  of  the  Master 
whose  teaching  brought  into  their  lives  the  fulness  of 
divine  content. 

There  is  the  same  quality  and  the  same  degree  of  techni- 
cal achievement  in  this  sculpture  as  in  the  painting  of  the 
mother  and  child  before  Buddha  in  Cave  XVII.  The 
genius  of  the  artist  is  felt  through  the  perfect  revelation 
of  his  subconscious  self  rather  than  by  the  display  of  his 
scientific  knowledge,  the  subjective  expression  dominating 
objective  realities.  In  the  one  case  the  painter  uses  a 
sweeping  brush-drawn  line  so  intense  and  full  of  vitality 
that  it  needs  only  the  slightest  complement  of  colour  and 
tone  to  perfect  the  aesthetic  creation.  Similarly,  the 
sculptor,  in  concentrating  himself  upon  the  spiritual  feel- 
ing of  the  subject,  uses  the  boldest  effects  of  chiaroscuro, 
and  reduces  all  lines  and  modulations  of  surface  to  their 
simplest  forms,  so  that  no  superfluous  details  distract  the 
eye  from  the  essential  points  of  movement  and  expres- 
II* 


i66  A   NAGARAJA    at   AJANTA 

sion.  This  does  not  imply  any  neglect  of  technical 
resources,  but  rather  that  supreme  power  of  synthesis 
which  is  characteristic  of  all  great  art.  Both  the  Indian 
painter  and  the  sculptor  lavish  infinite  care  and  skill  upon 
necessary  enrichments,  such  as  the  jewelled  tiara  and 
ornaments,  just  as  the  Indian  singer  will  subtly  accentuate 
a  phrase  with  his  grace-notes  and  quarter-tones. 

The   masterly  treatment   of  the    cobra's  hood  is  a 
striking  feature  in  this  sculpture. 


PLATE    XXV 

QUEEN    MAyA    and    THE    INFANT    PRINCE    SIDDHARTHA 

SLEEPING 

This  very  remarkable  piece  of  Buddhist  sculpture  is  from 
the  Baro  temple  in  Central  India,  known  as  the  Gadarmal- 
ka-Mandi.  The  temple  itself  was  a  medieval  structure  of 
about  the  eleventh  century,  but  it  was  destroyed  and  re- 
built a  century  or  two  later.  The  date  of  the  sculpture 
cannot,  however,  be  determined  with  any  certainty  from 
the  age  of  the  building  :  it  probably  belonged  to  a  much 
earlier  Buddhist  temple  or  monastery. 

In  dramatic  feeling  and  wonderfully  dignified  treat- 
ment of  his  subject  this  Indian  sculptor  anticipated 
the  style  of  the  great  Florentine  masters.  There  is  a 
grand  harmony  and  repose  in  the  gently  undulating  lines 
of  Queen  M4ya,  sleeping  with  her  infant  pillowed  by  her 
side.  The  beatitude  to  which  she  was  to  attain  in  the 
Tusita  heavens,  seven  days  after  her  child's  birth,  already 
fills  her  soul ;  a  presentiment  of  the  blessing  and  consola- 
tion which  the  Tath^gata  was  to  bring  to  a  suffering 
world,  and  of  the  infinite  peace  of  Nirvana  which  would 
end  the  long  cycle  of  his  earthly  lives.  The  rhythmic  swell 
of  a  calm  sea  seems  to  be  suggested  in  the  wavy  edge  of 
the  carpet  in  which  the  mother  and  child  are  resting. 

The   four   female   attendants   standing  alert  by  the 

167 


i68  AN    INDIAN    MADONNA 

Queen's  side  express  perfectly  in  their  attitudes  their 
watchful  attention  and  sense  of  high  responsibility  for  the 
great  trust  committed  to  their  charge.  The  very  expres- 
sive figure  of  the  other  one  who  supports  with  tender 
solicitude  her  royal  mistress's  head  rounds  off  the  compo- 
sition and  strikes,  as  it  were,  the  final  chord  with  a  deep 
note  of  human  feeling. 


PLATE   XXVI 


A    BODHISATIVA,    JAVA 


PLATE    XXVI 

HEAD    OF    A    BODHISATTVA    FROM    JAVA 

The  original  of  this  plate  is  preserved  in  the  Glyptotek 
at  Copenhagen  ;  it  was  brought  there  from  Java,  probably 
from  Borobudur. 

Indian  Art  in  Java  has  a  character  of  its  own  which 
distinguishes  it  from  that  of  the  continent  from  whence  it 
came.  There  runs  through  both  the  same  strain  of  deep 
serenity,  but  in  the  divine  ideal  of  Java  we  lose  the 
austere  feeling  which  characterises  the  Hindu  sculpture  of 
Elephanta  and  M^mallapuram.  There  is  more  of  human 
contentment  and  joy  in  I ndo- Javanese  art,  an  expression 
of  that  feeling  of  peaceful  security  which  the  Indian 
colonists  enjoyed  in  their  happy  island  home,  after  the 
centuries  of  storm  and  struggle  which  their  forefathers 
had  experienced  on  the  mainland. 

This  is  a  head  which,  for  its  masterly  generalisation  of 
form  and  line  might  superficially  be  labelled  Greek,  but 
it  is  penetrated  by  a  deep  religious  conviction  totally 
different  to  that  which  inspired  Hellenic  ideals.  We  can 
feel  that  the  sculptor  in  his  generalisation  was  not  content 
with  formulating  a  type  of  physical  perfection.  He  only 
used  the  formal  beauty  to  reveal,  as  in  a  mirror,  the  pure 
soul  of  the  Bodhisattva  ;  the  release  from  the  bondage  of 
intellectual  and  physical  strife  ;  the  exaltation  of  the  spirit 

169 


I70  HEAD   OF   A   BODHISATTVA 

that  is  purified  from  the  dross  of  worldly  desires ;  the 
penetration  of  a  mind  that  sees  through  the  veil  of  its 
earthly  environment. 

It  is  a  face  which  incarnates  the  stillness  of  the  depths 
of  ocean  ;  the  serenity  of  an  azure,  cloudless  sky ;  a  beati- 
tude beyond  mortal  ken.  Yet  in  all  its  aloofness  from 
human  passion  there  is  still  some  reflection  of  that  divine 
compassion  for  struggling  humanity  which  inspired  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Sakya  Muni. 


PLATE   XXVII 

THE    "  LINGA  "    SHRINE    OF    THE   GREAT    TEMPLE    OF 
ELEPHANTA,    BOMBAY 

The  inner  shrine,  or  garbha,  of  the  great  rock-cut  temple 
of  Elephanta  contains  the  lingam,  Siva's  emblem,  sym- 
bolising the  reproductive  powers  of  nature.  The  shrine 
itself,  approximately  cubical  in  form,  symbolises  the  earth. 
It  has  four  entrances,  facing  east,  west,  north,  and 
south,  each  of  which  is  guarded  by  two  colossal  figures, 
now  badly  mutilated,  representing  the  protecting  genii  ot 
the  four  cardinal  and  intermediate  points.  These  majestic 
figures,  each  about  fifteen  feet  in  height,  are  among  the 
finest  sculptures  at  Elephanta.  Equally  noble  in  design 
are  the  massive  columns  which  support  the  huge  weights 
of  the  superincumbent  rock.  Their  gourd-shaped  capitals 
are  similar  to  the  so-called  amdlika  which  crowns  the 
curved  spire  of  Hindu  temples,  and  is  probably  derived 
from  the  fruit  of  the  lotus-flower.  The  latter,  as  Count 
D'Alviella  remarks,^  symbolises  less  the  sun  itself  than 
the  solar  matrix,  the  mysterious  sanctuary  into  which  the 
sun  retires  every  evening,  there  to  acquire  fresh  life. 

^  *'  Migration  of  Symbols,"  p.  28. 


171 


PLATES   XXVIII    AND    XXIX 

SIVA    NATARAJA,    OR    NATESA,    LORD    OF    DANCERS 

The  magnificent  fragment  from  Elephanta  shown  in 
Plate  XXVIII.  is  the  prototype  of  the  South  Indian 
bronzes  of  Siva  as  Nataraja,  illustrated  in  Chapter  V. 
(Plates  VII.  and  VIII.).  Even  in  its  present  mutilated 
condition  it  is  an  embodiment  of  titanic  power,  a  majestic 
conception  of  the  Deity  who  for  His  pleasure  sets  the 
worlds  innumerable  in  motion.  Though  the  rock  itself 
seems  to  vibrate  with  the  rhythmic  movement  of  the 
dance,  the  noble  head  bears  the  same  look  of  serene  calm 
and  dispassion  which  illuminates  the  face  of  the  Buddha. 
It  belongs  to  the  most  virile  period  of  Hindu  sculpture, 
i.e.  from  the  sixth  to  the  eighth  centuries,  and  in  technical 
achievement  marks  its  highest  development.  Like  all  the 
Elephanta  sculptures,  it  was  mutilated  by  Portuguese 
buccaneers  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  has  suffered 
much  from  subsequent  neglect  and  vandalism. 

The  sculpture  of  the  same  subject  from  the  Ravana- 
ka-kai  Cave  at  Ellora,  Plate  XXIX.,  must  belong  to  a 
somewhat  later  date.  It  is  more  florid  in  style  and  less 
accomplished  in  technique,  though  not  less  strong  and 
expressive  in  its  movement ;  and  fortunately  it  has  suffered 
less  from  mutilation  than  its  great  Elephanta  prototype. 

One  of  the  charges  which  unsympathetic  and  unin- 
formed critics  frequently  bring  against  Indian  art  is  its 
want  of  originality  in  the  unvarying  repetition  of  traditional 

172 


ELEPHANTA   AND    ELLORA  173 

types.  It  is  true  that  Indian  artists,  like  the  great  masters 
of  the  West,  always  expressed  themselves  in  the  forms 
and  conventions  of  artistic  tradition — the  art-language  of 
the  race.  But  it  only  shows  ignorance  of  the  subject  to 
assert  that  they  have  always  lacked  creative  power.  In 
the  great  period  of  Indian  sculpture,  before  the  Muham- 
madan  invasion,  which  is  just  that  with  which  most 
European  critics  are  least  acquainted,  it  is  only  necessary 
to  compare  the  different  artistic  developments  which 
belong  to  different  localities  and  different  times  to  recog- 
nise that,  in  the  treatment  of  traditional  subjects,  the 
individuality  of  the  Indian  artist  always  strongly  asserts 
itself. 

It  will  be  obvious,  in  the  case  of  these  two  typical 
examples  of  the  same  subject,  only  slightly  varied  in' 
general  lines  and  disposition  of  masses,  how  individual 
each  one  is  in  artistic  expression,  and  how  much  they 
explain  the  religious  atmosphere  of  the  schools  to  which 
they  belong. 

The  Elephanta  sculpture  reflects  the  lofty  idealism  and 
intellectuality  of  the  Upanishads.  At  Ellora  we  feel 
more  of  the  spirit  of  medieval  priestcraft,  with  all  its 
ritualistic  pageantry  and  superstitious  emotionalism.  It 
shows  us  the  corrupt  state  of  Hinduism  at  the  time  when 
the  great  reformer  Sankaracharya  began  his  mission. 
Here  Siva,  with  the  hissing  cobra  as  a  girdle,  and  the 
grim  skeleton  of  Death  lurking  behind  him,  is  only  the 
terrible  Destroyer  rejoicing  in  the  dissolution  of  the  worlds. 


PLATES   XXX  AND   XXXI 

UPPER     PART     OF      ROCK-CUT     TEMPLE     AT     KALUGUMALAI, 

TINNEVELLY    DISTRICT TEMPLE    OF    RAJARAN!    (cIRCA 

A.D.    lOOo)   AT    BHUVANESHWAR,    PURI  :    PART   OF   THE 
WESTERN  fa(;:ade 

The  latest  of  the  series  of  Dravidian  rock-cut  temples  is 
in  the  extreme  south  of  Madras,  in  the  Tinnevelly  dis- 
trict, at  Kalugumalai.  It  has  been  dated  by  Fergusson  at 
about  the  tenth  or  eleventh  century,  but  from  the  style 
of  the  sculpture  I  am  inclined  to  think  this  is  a  century 
too  late.  From  an  architectural  point  of  view  he  rightly 
observes  that,  had  it  been  finished,  it  would  have  been 
one  of  the  most  perfect  gems  of  the  style.  From  the 
sculptor's  point  of  view  no  such  qualifications  need  be 
made :  the  fact  that  it  is  unfinished  rather  adds  to  its 
interest. 

Though  the  design  is  strictly  architectural  in  form, 
it  belongs  technically  entirely  to  the  plastic  or  glyptic 
form  of  art,  and  the  human  figure  plays  as  important 
a  part  in  it  as  it  does  in  many  masterpieces  of  Renais- 
sance monumental  sculpture.  Very  few  critics  will  refuse 
to  admit  the  extraordinary  technical  skill  displayed  in 
planning  out  and  carving  a  complex  form  of  such  dimen- 
sions from  a  ridge  of  granite  rock.  There  are  some, 
however,  who  would  deny  the  existence  of  any  scientific 
or  intellectual  basis  in   Eastern  art.     A  writer  in  The 

174 


EASTERN  ART  AND  WESTERN  CRITICS  175 

Edinburgh  Review,  in  an  article  on  "  Eastern  Art  and 
Western  Critics,"  ^  asserts  that  "  every  kind  of  manifesta- 
tion, scientific,  political,  literary,  of  order,  discipline,  and 
coherence  will  be  looked  for  in  Eastern  life  in  vain  " — 
his  impressions  of  Eastern  life  being  derived  from  three 
years  passed  among  the  Tamil  coolies  and  Cingalese 
villagers  of  Ceylon.  "It  would  be  easy  to  show,"  he 
affirms,  "  that  Western  civilisation.  Western  knowledge 
and  science  and  thought  and  literature,  and  also  Western 
politics  and  government  and  methods  of  colonising  and 
ruling — in  short,  the  Western  influence  in  all  its  effects — 
has  been  of  a  distinctly  intellectual  and  rational  quality, 
and  has  been  closely  identified  with  the  establishment  of 
order,  discipline,  coherence — in  a  word,  with  the  vindica- 
tion in  all  things  of  the  principle  of  form  "  :  his  thesis 
being  that  the  intellectual  West  has,  in  the  domain  of 
art,  spoken  in  terms  of  form,  the  emotional  East  in  terms 
of  colour. 

The  distinction  he  draws  is  a  wholly  imaginary  one. 
Even  in  pictorial  art  the  Oriental  has  always  relied  upon 
line  rather  than  upon  colour,  as  a  means  of  self-expression  ; 
and  line,  if  it  expresses  anything,  expresses  form.  Colour 
was  always  used  by  the  great  artists  of  the  East  as  a 
subordinate  instrument,  to  accentuate  and  develop  the 
forms  which  the  line  expressed. 

Again,  Indian  art,  in  its  greatest  achievements,  is 
more  concerned  with  sculpture  and  architecture  than  with 
painting.  How,  then,  does  this  colour-theory  apply  to  it, 
more  than  to  Greek  sculpture  and  architecture  ? 

It  is,  in  fact,  difficult  to  draw  a  hard-and-fast  dis- 
tinction between  Western  and  Eastern  art,  because  there 
have  been  periods  in  which  the  West  has  gone  over  to 
the  East,  and  vice-versa.  But,  in  the  true  Eastern  ideal, 
^  No.  344,  October  19 10. 


176  EASTERN  ART  AND  WESTERN  CRITICS 

form  is  used  merely  as  a  vehicle  for  self-realisation.  The 
West,  more  idolatrous  than  the  East,  often  regards  the 
realisation  of  form  as  the  end  of  art. 

The  idea  of  Indian  art  as  a  nebulous,  chaotic  mass  of 
glowing  colour,  charged  with  emotion,  may  give  a  suffi- 
ciently clear  indication  of  the  critic's  Eastern  impressions, 
but  his  sweeping  generalisations  will  be  astonishing  to 
any  one  who  has  realised  how  deeply  all  Indian  life  and 
culture,  even  to  the  lowest  strata,  have  been  permeated 
by  the  teachings  of  the  philosophical  schools.  It  was  the 
work  of  the  great  universities  of  Northern  India  to  co- 
ordinate the  artistic  traditions  of  the  heterogeneous  racial 
elements  which  composed  Indian  society  at  that  time,  to 
rationalise  them  and  use  them  for  the  interpretation  of 
the  esoteric  teachings  of  philosophy  and  religion.  The 
men  who  created  Indian  art  were  not,  as  the  Western 
academic  critic  assumes,  of  an  inferior  intellectual  calibre 
to  the  poets,  philosophers,  and  religious  teachers  ;  for  art 
was  not  then,  as  it  is  now,  a  specialised  study  divorced 
from  religion  and  ignored  by  the  universities.  It  was  an 
integral  part  of  national  life  and  thought.  To  assert  that 
Indian  art  has  failed  to  interpret  Indian  thought  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms  :  for  no  art  can  live  for  more  than 
twenty  centuries  which  fails  to  express  the  intellectuality 
of  a  people.  But  there  are  evidently  still  some  critics 
who,  like  Macaulay,  refuse  to  admit  the  intelligence  of 
Eastern  races:  who,  because  Indian  art  seems  to  them 
obscure,  will  deny  that  it  satisfactorily  expresses  what 
its  creators  intended. 

It  is  a  common  view  of  Indian  art  to  regard  it  as 
undisciplined,  incoherent,  and  without  any  intellectual 
foundation  ;  an  assumption  only  proceeding  from  our  pro- 
found ignorance  of  all  aspects  of  Indian  culture,  of  its 
history  and  scientific  principles. 


EASTERN  ART  AND  WESTERN  CRITICS  177 

We  still  cling  foolishly  and  arrogantly  to  the  belief 
that,  by  totally  ignoring  the  living  traditions  of  Indian  art, 
and  by  teaching  Indian  students  anatomy,  perspective, 
•'  model  drawing,"  and  the  orders  of  classic  architecture, 
we  are  fulfilling  our  intellectual  mission  in  the  East ;  and 
this  we  do  in  sublime  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  Indian 
art  has  its  scientific  principles  and  laws  of  form  as  clear, 
precise,  and  intelligent  as  the  aesthetic  formularies  of 
Greece,  or  as  the  grammar  and  syntax  of  its  classical 
language,  Sanskrit. 

The  assumed  antagonism  between  the  root  principles 
of  Hellenic  art  and  Indian  comes,  to  a  large  extent,  from 
our  modern  empirical  methods  of  applying  them.  It  is 
open  to  question  how  far  our  admiration  for  Greek  art  is 
based  upon  a  deep  intuitive  sympathy  for  the  highest 
aesthetic  qualities  which  the  Greeks  themselves  admired 
and  strove  to  realise,  and  how  far  it  is  influenced  by 
inherited  tendencies  towards  Puritanical  plainness  and 
whitewash,  by  academic  prepossessions  of  the  mind 
inculcated  by  generations  of  classical  schoolmasters,  and 
by  pride  in  the  belief  that  the  mechanism  of  the  Greek 
aesthetic  is  known  to  us  and  can  be  applied  by  ourselves 
with  such  facility  as  modern  European  art  and  archi- 
tecture indicate. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  what  an  uproar  there  would  be 
if  some  mischievous  sprite  with  a  magic  wand  were  sud- 
denly to  restore  the  Elgin  marbles  in  the  British  Museum 
to  their  pristine  condition,  give  to  the  classical  statues 
which  originally  had  it  the  final  coat  of  coloured  wax 
(which  to  the  Greeks  represented  an  art  higher  than  that 
of  the  sculptor),  and  added  to  the  model  of  the  Parthenon 
all  the  richness  of  its  painted  decoration  which  it  had  in 
the  days  of  Pericles.  How  classical  scholars  and  critics 
would  blaspheme  and  denounce  the  emotional  barbarians 
12 


178  EASTERN  ART  AND  WESTERN  CRITICS 

who  dared  to  desecrate  the  purity  and  intellectuality  of  the 
art  of  Hellas  with  an  oriental  paint-pot !  Their  classical 
ideal  would  be  lowered  to  the  level  of  an  Indian  pagoda ! 
Certainly  it  is  the  limitations,  rather  than  the  merits,  of 
Greek  art,  its  simplicity  rather  than  its  nobility  and  re- 
finement, which  make  it  appeal  so  strongly  to  the  man  in 
the  street,  the  building  contractor,  and  the  amateur  artist 
or  architect.  And  it  is  equally  certain  that,  while  very 
few  Western  critics  have  gained  their  knowledge  of 
Indian  art  at  first  hand,  the  recognised  exponents  of  it, 
unconscious  of  their  own  limitations,  have  been  its  chief 
detractors. 

The  Greeks  themselves,  I  have  no  doubt,  would  have 
scoffed  at  academic  distinctions  between  "fine"  art  and 
"  decorative  "  :  they  would  have  given  unstinted  praise 
to  the  sculpture  at  Kalugumalai,  and  recognised  in  the 
Sun-temple  at  Mudhera,  in  Gujerat,  an  art  not  less  per- 
fisct  than  their  own.  Nor  would  they  have  denied  the 
intellectuality  in  the  decorative  scheme  in  Plate  XXXI., 
from  the  Rajarani  temple  at  Bhuvaneshwar,  in  Orissa. 
What  their  comments  would  be  on  the  "classical"  art 
which  we  substitute  for  Indian  in  Calcutta  public 
buildings  may  well  be  imagined. 

If  Greece,  at  the  time  of  her  greatest  artistic  develop- 
ment, had  established  a  permanent  empire  in  India,  and 
all  the  wealth  of  Indian  nature,  with  its  infinite  sugges- 
tions, had  been  revealed  to  her  mind  ;  if  Vedic  culture  had 
been  added  to  the  philosophy  of  Pythagoras  and  Plato ; 
I  cannot  conceive  that  Indian  art  would  have  taken  a 
very  different  course  to  that  which  it  actually  followed. 
It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  Greek  aesthetic  thought 
would  not  in  such  a  case  have  responded  to  the  influence 
of  its  environment,  as  art  in  its  very  nature  must  do ; 
that  her  architecture  would  not  then  have  reflected  some- 


THE   VITAL   ISSUE  179 

thing  of  the  wild  grandeur  of  the  tropical  forest,  as  well 
as  the  trim  beauty  of  the  olive  and  cypress  grove ;  and 
that,  with  a  wider  experience  of  life,  the  sculpture  of  her 
pantheon  would  not  have  acquired  a  more  profound  meta- 
physic  than  that  represented  by  the  gods  and  goddesses 
of  the  Parthenon. 

After  all,  invidious  comparisons  between  different 
schools  of  artistic  thought  are  altogether  unprofitable.  It 
is  futile  to  discuss  whether  the  lily  be  more  beautiful  than 
the  rose  ;  and  if  intellectuality  were  the  only  quality  in 
art,  the  most  perfect  aesthetic  might  be  found  in  a  correct 
solution  to  a  problem  in  compound  proportion.  The  real 
issue,  which  my  critics  persistently  evade  or  try  to  con- 
fuse, is  not  an  academic  one — whether  from  an  intellectual 
standpoint  Indian  art  should  or  should  not  seem  great  in 
Western  eyes — but  a  practical  and  vital  one,  whether, 
because  we  think  our  own  art  finer,  we  are  justified  in 
exterminating  that  which  belongs  to  Indian  civilisation. 
Does  a  good  gardener,  because  he  loves  the  lilies  best, 
uproot  all  the  roses  ?  In  India  we  propagate  the  weeds, 
and  let  the  roses  die. 

The  absorbing  interest  of  Indian  art,  to  all  artists  in 
the  West,  must  always  lie  not  so  much  in  the  magnificence 
of  its  ancient  monuments  as  in  the  fact  that  such  exquisite 
art  as  that  of  the  Rajarani  temple,  unapproached  by  any 
Western  architectural  sculpture  of  modern  times,  repre- 
sents a  living  tradition  still  practised  by  large  numbers  of 
Indian  craftsmen.  If  there  were  any  sound  artistic  or 
scientific  principles  in  our  educational  methods,  India 
would  need  no  schools  to  stimulate  such  a  grand  tradition 
into  new  life  :  or  even  if  we  would  leave  things  alone, 
and  not  pretend  to  teach,  Indian  art  would  still  be  better 
off. 

The  folly  of  the  present  departmental  system  is  that, 


i.8o  ART   TEACHING    IN    INDIA 

with  such  a  tradition  still  alive,  with  numbers  of  such 
master  craftsmen  still  obtainable,  we  allow  Indian  revenues 
to  be  spent  in  producing  mechanical  imitations  of  Gothic 
or  Renaissance  sculpture  at  ten  or  twenty  times  the  cost 
of  good  Indian  art ;  and  this,  forsooth,  because  some 
Western  doctrinaires  believe  that  Indian  sculpture  is  not 
"fine"! 


PLATE   XXXII 


PILLAR  IN   THE   SIVA   TEMPLE,    VELLOKE 


PLATE   XXXII 

A   CARVED    PILLAR    INSIDE    THE    SIVA    TEMPLE    (kALYANA 

mandapa)  vellore,  madras 

This  is  a  superb  example  of  Dravidian  architectural 
sculpture  attributed  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Essentially  Gothic  in  feeling,  it  will  bear  com- 
parison with  the  best  work  of  the  cathedral  craftsmen  of 
medieval  Europe.  Dravidian  art  reflects  the  wild  luxuri- 
ance and  mysterious  beauty  of  those  dense  jungles  of 
Southern  India,  haunted  by  rakshasas  and  fearsome 
beasts,  through  which  Rama  and  his  faithful  monkey 
allies  forced  their  way  to  rescue  Siti  from  her  prison  in 
the  stronghold  of  the  demon-king,  Ravana. 

In  the  wonderful  pillared  halls  attached  to  the  temples 
of  Southern  India  is  concentrated,  as  it  were,  the  essence 
of  the  beauty  of  a  tropical  forest,  perfectly  ordered  to 
fulfil  architectonic  and  aesthetic  purposes.  No  one  who 
has  not  seen  them  can  have  any  conception  of  their  great 
beauty  and  perfect  art. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  defect  inherent  in  the  quality  of  art 
such  as  this,  that  in  its  romantic  imaginativeness  and  the 
energy  of  its  creative  power  it  has  a  tendency  to  become 
sometimes  incoherent,  and  to  lose  the  sense  of  co-ordina- 
tion and  aesthetic  unity.  But  this  is  only  to  say  that  all 
art  in  its  decadence  converts  its  own  merit  into  an  offence, 
just  as  a  beautiful   body  from  which   life  has  departed 

12*  l8l 


i82  DRAVIDIAN    SCULPTURE 

begins  to  putrefy.  One  might  just  as  well  blame  Nature 
herself,  and  say  thather  tropical  moods  cannot  inspire  great 
art,  as  charge  Indian  sculpture  generally  with  incoherency. 

It  is  only  because  Indian  sculpture  is  solely  judged  in 
England  from  the  few  fragments  promiscuously  thrown 
together  at  South  Kensington  and  the  British  Museum 
that  a  keen  and  cultured  art  critic  like  Mr.  Roger  Fry 
can  write  of  the  difficulties  of  an  approach  to  the  under- 
standing of  Indian  art  as  follows  :  "  It  is  rather  the 
curious  incoherence — for  to  us  it  appears  such — of  Indian 
sculpture,  its  want  of  any  large  co-ordination,  of  any  sense 
of  relative  scale.  In  its  choice  of  relief  and  of  the  scale 
of  ornament  it  appears  without  any  principle.  It  is  like  a 
rococo  style  deprived  of  the  lightness  and  elegance  which 
alone  make  that  style  tolerable.  Such  a  treatment  im- 
plies for  our  minds  a  fundamental  conflict  between  the 
notion  and  its  expression ;  for  these  heavily  ornate  reliefs 
— one  cannot  but  have  in  mind  the  Amaravati  sculptures 
of  the  British  Museum — are  intended  apparently  to  convey 
notions  of  grave  religious  import,  and  such  ideas  are  for 
us  inevitably  connected  with  a  certain  type  of  line,  with  a 
certain  austerity  in  the  treatment  of  a  design,  with  large 
unperturbed  surfaces  or  great  and  clearly  united  sequences 
of  plane."  ^ 

Such  criticism  may  be  perfectly  just  as  applied  to  the 
particular  instance  cited  ;  the  error  lies  in  taking  the 
Amardvati  sculptures  as  typical  of  the  best  Indian  art. 
Even  in  this  case  it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  these 
reliefs  were  originally  painted,  and  the  total  effect  of  them, 
in  situ,  in  the  brilliant  Indian  sunshine,  can  hardly  be 
judged  in  their  present  position  on  the  staircase  of  the 
British  Museum. 

^  Quarterly  Review,  January  19  lo. 


INDEX 


Abfi,  Mount,  127 

Adi-Buddha,  34,  53 

Agni,  10 

Ahamkara,  153 

Airavata,  the  elephant,  150 

Ajanta  paintings,  28,  113,  132,  165 

Ajanta,  sculptures  at,  164-166 

Akbar,  118,  120,  140-142 

Amdlika,  the,  171 

Amaravati  sculptures,   16,  19,  28, 

48,  III,  112,  182 
Amrita,  10,  62 
Angelico,  Fra,  25 
Angkor,  temple  at,  64,  138 
Animals  in  Indian  art,  92 
Anuradhapura,  statue  at,  34,  163 
Apparswami,  statuette  of,  114 
Apsarasas,  62,  64 
Arjuna,  57,  147-151 
Art,  aim  of  Indian,  24,  32,  40,  112 

„    living  Indian,   120,  i2i,  143, 
144,  179,  180 
Art-philosophy,  3-5,  23-25 
Art,  Puranic,  i6i 


Art,  Saracenic,  162 

Art-teaching,  22,  39,  41,  121,  179, 

180 
Aryan  antipathy  to  idols,  7,  8,  14 

„      philosophy,  15 
Asanas,  52 
Asoka,  15,  17 
Asokan  sculpture,  18 
Asuras,  60,  63,  155 
Aura,  48-50 
Aurangzib,    120,    132,    133,    135, 

141,  142 
Avafaras  of  Vishnu,  77,  78,  152 
Avidhya,  55 

Bain,  Mr.,  91,  93 
Beauty  in  nature  and  art,  23-25 
*'  Bhagavad-Gita,"  56 
Bhakti-marga,  105-107 
Bharhut,  stupa  of,  16,  92 
Binyon,  Mr.  Laurence,  41-44,  46, 

115 
Bird  wood,    Sir   George,    19,    103, 

159-162 


183 


1 84 


INDEX 


Bodhisattvas,  35,  53 

Borobudiir  sculptures,    113,    130, 

131 

Brahma,  67,  70,  72,  76,  89 

Brahmanas,  ritual  of  the,  8,  9 
Buddha,  attributes  of,  28 

„        enlightenment  of,  29,  30 
Buddhism  in  China,  43-46 


Chakra  of  Vishnu,  73,  74 
Chalukyan  architecture,  96 
Chartres,  sculpture  at,  25 
Chinese  art,  19,  20,  34,  36,42,  43, 

133.  134 
Chitrasdlas,  133,  138 
Chitrasena,  150 

Chittor,  towers  of  victory  at,  127 
Churning  of  the  Ocean,  60-63 
Cimabue,  25 

Cobra,  emblem  of  Siva,  75 
Conch-shell  of  Vishnu,  75,  87,  153 
Coomaraswamy,  Dr.,  33 
Creation,  Hymn  of,  66 

legend  of,  91,  93,  94 
Cretan  art,  26,  27 
Critics,  Western,  175-180 
Cross,  the  cosmic,  68,  73 


Daksha,  83,  84 

D'Alviella,  Count  G.,  104,  171 

Davids,  Mrs,  Rhys,  92,  93 


Dhanwantari,  62 

Dharma,  157 

Dhyani-Bodhisattvas,  35,  53 

Dhyani-Buddhas,  34,  35,  53 

Divine  form,  67 

Divine  Ideal  in  woman,  95,  96 

Divine  Ideal,  the  Indian,  22-31, 

47-65,  55-60,  65,  95 
Draupadi,  99,  100 
Dflrga,  89 


Eclectic  period,  13-21 

Egg  of  the  Universe,  5  9 

Egyptian  art,  27 

Elephanta  sculptures,  80,  1 71-173 

Ellora  sculptures,  80,  172,  173 


Fazl,  Abul,  119 
Feminine  beauty,  94 
Fry,  Mr.  Roger,  182 


Gadha,  or  mace  of  Vishnu,  74, 153 
Gandhara  sculpture,  17,  20,  21,  29, 

80-82,  162 
Gandharvas,  the,  151 
Gandiva,  Arjuna's  bow,  153 
Ganesha,  51,  81,  84,  85 
Geometric  symbolism,  85,  86 
Gods,  dwelling-places  of  the,  107, 

108 


INDEX 


J85 


Govardhana,  the  mountain,  155 
Grierson,  Dr.,  107 
Gunas,  66,  69,  76,  i53« 


Hellenic  art,  177-179 

„        ideal,  25 
Hlnayana  doctrine,  29 
History,  Indian,  122-144 
Hymn  of  Creation,  66 


Ideal,  the  Divine,  22-31,  47-65, 
55-60,  65,  95 ;  in  woman,  95,  96 
Ideal,  the  physical,  25-28 
Images,  classification  of,  70 

„        prohibition  of,  128,  135 
Indra,  60,  64,  148,  150 
Innes,  Mr.  E.  R.,  49 
Intuition,  6,  33 
Ishvara,  66,  67 
Ittagi,  temple  at,  97 


Kalidasa,  25,  96,  98,  loi,  155 
Kalugumalai,  temple  at,  1 74 
Kama,  51 

Kamthaka,  the  horse,  in 
Kanarak,  elephants  at,  157 
Kao-huang,  49 
Karma-marga,  165 
Kama,  26 
Karttikeya,  81 
Kauravas,  the,  148 
Keynote  of  Asiatic  art,  8 
Krishna,  47,  56,  61,  114,  139 
Kuruvatti,  temple  at,  97,  98 
Kuvera,  150 


Lakkundi,  temple  at,  97 
Lakshanas,  or  beauty  marks,  99, 

100 
Lakshmi,  62,  63,  96,  155,  156 
Lalita  Vistara,  the,  48,  49 
Lingam^  the,  87,  88,  171 
Lokapalas,  the,  17,  18 


Jains,  the,  47,  127-129 

Japanese  art,  36  Mahabharata,  the,  26,  27,  31,  48, 

Jdtakas,  the,  125,  131  60,  90,  100,  127,  137 

Java,  Indian  art  in,  71,  74,  169,      Mahiyana  doctrine,  29 
170  »         ritual,  36-38 

Maha-yogi,  37 
Mahendravarman  I.,  147 
K^li,  55i  58,  90  Maitreya,  53 


Kailasa  temple  at  Ellora,  159 


MakarUy  102 


i86 


INDEX 


Mamallapuram      sculptures,      78, 

137.     147-163 
Mandara,  61,  63 
Manu,  laws  of,  85 
Mara,  30 

Marks  of  beauty,  99,  100 
Mayi,  Queen,  167,  168 
Minoan  art,  27 
Missionaries,  Buddhist,  160 
Mnemonic  system,  40 
Mogul  art,  118-121,  140-143,  162 
Mokshuy  106 

Mudhera,  temple  at,  139,  178 
Mudras,  35-38,  52,  II 
Museums,  European,  42,  58,  72, 

182 

Nigarjuna,  29 
Nagas,  the,  150'  151,  164 
Nandi,  Siva's  bull,  157' 
Nir^yana,  67,  68 
Narayana- Vishnu,  68« 
Nitaraja,  79-81,  163,  172,  173 
Nature,  Indian  love  of,  107-109, 
158-163 

Okakura,  Mr.,  3 

Origin  of  Indian  art,  3-12 

Outlook  upon  nature,  1 09-1 12 

Painting,  Hindu,  119 
Paintings  at  Ajanta,  28,  113,  132, 
165 


Palitana,  temples  at,  127,  128 
Pindavas,  the,  109,  148 
Parijata  tree,  62 
Farm  symbol,  86 
Parvati,  82,  84,  89,  96-98 
Patanjali,  29 

Paths,  the  Three,  105-121 
PersepoHtan  art,  16,  17 
Pillar  of  the  Universe,  73,  74 
Prajna,  34,  96 
Prakriti,  47,  66,  67 
Puranic  Art,  161 
Puritanism  in  art,  7,  9 
Furusha,  47,  66,  77 

Quran,  the,  58 

Radha,  114 

Rajarani,  temple  of,  178,  179 
Fajasik  images,  70 
Fakshasas,  181 
Rima,  exile  of,  no 
Ramayana,  the,  9,  10,  137 
Reincarnation,  belief  in,  in 
Rheims,  sculpture  at,  25 
Rig-veda,  the,  109,  no 


Saivaites,  the,  134-136 
Sakas,  the,  16 
Sakti,  66,  89,  155 
Salvation  by  works,  46 


SinchI,  sculptures  at,   i6,   19,  92, 

loi,  I02,  III,  112 
Sandhya,  38,  69 
Sandilya,  aphorisms  of,  107 
Sankaracharya,  135 
Saracenic  art,  14 
Saraswati,  89 
Sati,  83,  84 
Sattvik  images,  70 
Sauwastika,  the,  69 
Sea  of  Milk,  61 
Sectarian  disputes,  12 
Sesha,  the  serpent,  67 
Sevenfold  Office,  the,  37,  38 
Sex  symbolism,  86,  87 
Shelley  and  Yoga,  39,  40 
Siddhartha,  Prince,  48,  rii,  167, 

168 
Silpa  Sastras,  116 
Siva,  56,  62,  67,  68,  75,  76,  79,  80, 

85,  148-151,  153.  172,  173 
Siva  and  Daksha,  83,  84 
Smith,  Mr.  Vincent,  19,  \z\n 
Spirals,  symbolism  of,  86 
Spiritual  vision,  15,  24 
Sri-vatsa,  mark  of  Vishnu,  153 
Stiipa,  symbolism  of  the,  17,  87 
Subjectivity  of  art,  14,  23 
Sukracharya,  24 
Sundara  Mftrti  Swami,  statuette  of, 

114,  115 
Sun-temples,  25-28 
Sun-worship,  17,  139 


INDEX  187 

Superman,  the  Indian,  25-28 
Surabhi,  62 
S{irya,  65«,  69 
Swastika,  the,  69,  73 
Symbolism,  evolution  of,  59,  60 


Taj  Mahal,  the,  117,  119,  120 
Tamasik  images,  70 
Tindavan,  Siva's  dance,  79,  97 
Tira,  96 
Tiranatha,  81 

Tee,  symbolism  of  the,  17,  74 
Tree,  the  cosmic,  74 
Triangles,  symbolism  of,  86 
TrimArti,  the,  66-88 
Tripura,  79 
Tusita  Heavens,  167 
Twashtri,  91 


Uma,  84,  89 

Unity  of  creation,  109,  112 

Unity  of  Indian  thought,  1 1 

Universities,  Indian,  22-46,  176 

Upavita,  71 

Crn&,  48,  50,  51 


Vac,  the  Divine  Word,  8 
V&han,  70,  71,  73 
Vaishnavaites,  the,  130,  136,  137 
Varaha  incarnation,  152 


i88  INDEX 

Varuna,  150  Vishnu,  three  steps  of,  78,  87,  152 
Varuni,  62,  68 
Vasishtha,  sacrifice  of,  9,  10 

Vedas,  sacredness  of  the,  7  Waist,  narrow,  26,  27 

Vedic  influence  in  Indian  art,  14,  Woman,  the  Indian,  91-93 
20 
„      period,  3-12 

Vellore,  carved  pillar  at,  181,  182  Yama,  150 

Vishnu,  12,  59,  60,  61,  67,  73,  74,  Yoga,  austerities  of,  148,  149 
87,  152-154  ,,     Indian  art  and,  29-41 

„       attributes  of,  153,  154  „      philosophy,  29,  31 

„       incarnations    of,    77,    78,  Yudhisthira,  109,  148 

152  Yueh-chi,  the,  16 


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